Court Opinion

ID: 9528432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:41:08.118632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:51.709852
License: Public Domain

WOOD, J., Dissenting.
I dissent as to the reversal of the judgment against defendant Starling. The evidence should be stated most favorably to plaintiff, who recovered the judgment, and in my view of the evidence the majority opinion omits the most important facts upon which the jury’s verdict rests. Substantial evidence was presented to establish that Starling drove his car down Fremont Avenue at 65 or 70 miles per hour; that as he approached Malone’s truck he passed a vehicle moving more slowly; that he did not apply his brakes “real hard” until he was 20 or 30 feet from the truck; that he “flashed” behind the truck and across a driveway 60 feet in width at the rate of 50 miles per hour, so fast, indeed, that he crashed into an embankment on the far side of the driveway with such force as to severely injure one of the occupants of his car. The Starling ear left tire marks on the pavement estimated as far as 160 feet.
By the implied finding of the jury it must be held that Starling drove his car down the street at a speed which under the circumstances shown in evidence was not only excessive but was also in violation of law. Such action on his part was undoubtedly misconduct and Starling must be held under the jury’s verdict to have known it was misconduct. He drove his car intentionally at a rate of speed in violation of law. Such action was not alone misconduct, it was wilful. He intentionally performed an act which was unlawful.
The facts in Meek v. Fowler, supra, cited in the majority opinion, are not similar to the facts of the present case. In that case defendant drove his car across a street intersection, increasing his speed to cross in front of the other car, and in holding his conduct to be a result of a mistake of judgment, the Supreme Court said: “The evidence in the present case is capable of but one construction, viz., that the attempt of the *85driver of the guest car to cross the intersection in advance of the Peckinpah car, whether he was driving at a normal or an excéssive rate of speed, was the result of his conclusion, mistaken though his judgment may have been, that he could safely negotiate said crossing before the arrival of the other car.” The case before us does not involve a mistake of judgment but rather an intentional driving at a rate of speed under circumstances which bring it within the terms of a definition set forth in the case of Meek v. Fowler, supra.: “The phrase ‘wilful misconduct’, as employed in our so-called guest statute, has been variously defined in the many cases that have had occasion to consider the same. We shall not attempt to reconcile the several .definitions and applications given to this phrase. It is satisfactorily defined in Turner v. Standard Oil Co., 134 Cal. App. 622, 626 [25 Pac. (2d) 988], wherein it is declared that ‘ “wilful misconduct”, within the meaning of this statute, may then be defined as intentionally doing something in the operation of a motor vehicle which should not be done or intentionally failing to do something which should be done under circumstances disclosing knowledge, express or to be implied, that an injury to a guest will be a probable result’.” Starling’s conduct in intentionally driving at the rate of speed and under the circumstances shown in the evidence .brings him within the provision of the first part of the definition just quoted, and his failure to apply his brakes properly until 20 or 30 feet from the truck brings him within the provision of the second part of the definition.
The Constitution assigns to the legislature the duty of enacting the laws and to the jury the duty of passing upon, the facts. The words “wilful” and “misconduct” are simple and are well understood by the citizenry. The legislature would have provided an explanation or qualification of their use if such had been deemed necessary. Manifestly the legislature intended that the jury in each ease 'should determine what conduct on the part of a driver constitutes wilful misconduct. In the present ease the jury has found that Starling’s actions constituted wilful misconduct. There is substantial evidence in the record to sustain the jury’s findings. By a reversal of the judgment the court substitutes its own view of the evidence for that of the jury.
*86A petition by appellants to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on February 27, 1936.