Court Opinion

ID: 9572293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:40:29.567361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:21.245325
License: Public Domain

Oliver, J.
(dissenting) — I respectfully dissent.
I. The three specifications of defendant’s negligence pleaded by plaintiffs are failure to: (1) turn to the right (2) keep a proper lookout, and (3) have his car under control. Plaintiffs did not allege defendant was negligent for failure to display proper lights. Nor were the instructions of the court objected to on that ground. This contention was evidently an afterthought which appears to have been first made in plaintiffs-appellants’ brief and argument in this court. Appellants there state:
“The fact that he dimmed his lights so he could only see forty or fifty feet ahead when he had bright lights that would show 400 feet ahead and when as an experienced driver and trucker he had knowledge of the treacherous ice and the fact that the car ahead was in trouble would certainly have a bearing on the question of lookout.”
The majority opinion adopts and enlarges upon this contention. It holds the specification that defendant failed to keep a proper lookout includes the failure to display the higher, as distinguished from the lower, beam of the headlights on his car. The majority cites no authority which supports this conclusion and none has come to my attention. It is contrary to our prior holdings that each charge of negligence is limited to the specific negligence charged therein.
II. Nor do I agree defendant’s conduct in changing to the lower beam of. the headlights of his- car as the two cars approached would have justified submission of plaintiffs’ case to the jury on this ground, had it been pleaded. The majority overlooks section 321.416, Code of Iowa, 1954, which provides:
“Duty to lower lights. Whenever the driver of a vehicle approaches an oncoming vehicle within five hundred feet, such driver shall use a distribution of light or composite beam so aimed that the glaring rays are not projected into the eyes of the oncoming driver,” etc.
*708The evidence shows defendant complied with this statute. The majority holds he could have been found, guilty of negligence because he did so. This leaves defendant between the Scylla of the statute and the Charybdis of the majority opinion. Defendant’s failure to obey the statute would constitute negligence as a matter of law. His compliance with the statute would, under the majority opinion, warrant a finding he was negligent as a matter of fact.
III. Nor would the failure of the court to submit the specification of negligence of failure to keep a proper lookout entitle plaintiff to a reversal in any event. The jury returned a verdict for defendant on his counterclaim. Upon this point the instructions state, among other things, that before defendant can recover any damages upon his counterclaim he must show plaintiffs were guilty of one or more of the negligent acts specified by him and that the same were the proximate cause of such damages. The instructions state also: “Unless you find that defendant was not guilty of any negligence himself which contributed in any way or in any degree directly to the injury, defendant cannot recover in this action.
«* «= m
“By ‘contributory negligence’ is meant such negligence or want of reasonable care on the part of the party injured which contributed in any way or in any degree directly to the injury and damage in question, and may consist in his voluntarily exposing himself to danger or in his failure to avoid danger when the danger was known to him or when, by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence on his part, he could have discovered the danger in time to have avoided it.”
This verdict is a finding of fact that plaintiffs were negligent in one or more of the respects pleaded by defendant, that such negligence was the proximate cause of the collision and defendant was not guilty of any negligence which contributed in any way to it. This necessarily includes a finding that defendant by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence could not have discovered the danger to plaintiffs in time to have avoided the collision. Obviously such findings are fatal to plaintiffs’ right to recover on their petition. Under such circumstances we *709have repeatedly held errors assigned in other parts of the same, ease were not prejudicial. Fagen Elevator v. Pfiester, 244 Iowa 633, 637, 56 N.W.2d 577; Harriman v. Roberts, 211 Iowa 1372, 1375, 1376, 235 N.W. 751; Davidson v. Vast, 233 Iowa 534, 544, 545, 10 N.W.2d 12, 18; Smith v. Pine, 234 Iowa 256, 268, 12 N.W.2d 236, 243; Beck v. Dubishar, 240 Iowa 267, 271, 36 N.W.2d 438, 439, 440; Slabaugh v. Eldon Miller, Inc., 244 Iowa 29, 38, 55 N.W.2d 528, 533.
The majority opinion would avoid the rule of this line of cases on the ground those verdicts were for plaintiffs while this verdict is for defendant. There is no sound reason for such differentiation. In Davidson v. Vast, supra, 233 Iowa 534, 544, 545, 10 N.W.2d 12, 18, defendant counterclaimed against plaintiff and cross-petitioned against the part owner of the pickup truck which plaintiff’s decedent was driving. The court withdrew these pleadings from the consideration of the jury and this was assigned as error. Upon appeal this court held, “in view of the verdict [for plaintiff] the ruling was without prejudice.
“Had the counterclaim and cross-petition been submitted, the jury should have been instructed to give no consideration thereto in the event it found plaintiff entitled to recover, because such finding would include the finding that defendant was negligent, that his negligence was the proximate cause of the collision, and that decedent was free from contributory negligence. The verdict for plaintiff did necessarily include such findings, which were fatal to any right of recovery on the counterclaim or cross-petition. There is no possible theory on which both plaintiff and defendant were entitled to recover. We must conclude, therefore, that if the counterclaim and cross-petition had been submitted, defendant could not have recovered thereon.”
In the cited case defendant was actually the plaintiff in cross-petition against the party brought in by him as defendant in cross-petition.
The majority states: “If this be the rule then a plaintiff may have an erroneous verdict directed against him, as was virtually done here; and if the jury finds against him on a counterclaim, he is without a remedy for the admitted wrong.” One *710answer to that argument is all parties stand on an equality. The mere fact that the party who first reaches the courthouse is called the plaintiff does not entitle him to more favorable instructions on his claim than those given a defendant on a counterclaim.
The majority opinion would distinguish this case from the cited decisions, on the ground also' that Instruction No. 6 on last clear chance “in effect told the jury that plaintiffs were guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.” The instructions state:
“No. 6
“All specific acts of negligence on the part of the defendant as claimed by plaintiffs are withdrawn from your consideration, and the only question you are to determine in this case as far as the liability of the defendant is concerned is whether the defendant had the ‘last clear chance’ to avoid the accident, and if he did have such last clear chance and did not take advantage of it, he might be guilty of negligence and be liable as you are hereinafter told in these instructions.
“No. 7
“The doctrine of ‘last clear chance’ may be explained as follows:
“Where both parties are negligent, the one that has the last clear opportunity to avoid the accident, notwithstanding the negligence of the other, is responsible for it, his negligence being deemed the direct and proximate cause of it. In other words, if you find that plaintiff Lauman in this case has by his own negligence placed himself and his passengers in a dangerous position where injury is likely to result, the defendant, Dearmin, if he had knowledge or notice of such dangerous position of plaintiff’s car, is bound to use reasonable care and diligence to avoid injuring the plaintiffs. And where, by the exercise of such care, he could do so but fails to avoid the injury, this negligence introduces a new element into the case and renders defendant liable because such negligence on his part becomes the direct and proximate cause of the injury.”
These instructions are not fairly open to the interpretation “ they in effect tell the jury plaintiffs were guilty of contributory *711negligence as a matter of law. Clearly nothing in Instruction No. 6 does so. The first sentence of Instruction No. 7 is only an abstract statement of law. This instruction merely permits the jury to find plaintiff “has by his own negligence placed himself and his passengers in a dangerous position.”
Nor were plaintiffs’ objections to the instructions sufficient to form a basis for these conclusions of the majority. Plaintiffs made no objection to Instruction No. 7. They objected to Instruction No. 6 “for the reason that there are no specific acts of negligence shown in the issues and that by the giving of such instruction the jury would possibly reach the inference that the plaintiffs were negligent, and that the said Instruction No. 6 is in no way necessary in connection with the other instructions, and that the matter as to the last clear chance is fully covered in other instructions, and by the insertion of such Instruction No. 6 there will be an undue burden placed upon the plaintiffs to overcome the fact that certain specific acts of negligence were at one time or another claimed by the plaintiffs and withdrawn by the court, and that since the said Instruction No. 6 is not in any way necessary the injection of the matter covered by the instruction is prejudicial to the plaintiffs.”
IY. I am convinced Division I of the majority opinion is founded upon a specification of defendant’s negligence not pleaded by plaintiffs, a holding that compliance with a statute governing the use of automobile headlights on the road requires the submission to the jury of the negligence of the complying drivers, the repudiation of a long line of our decisions that errors such as those asserted by the majority are in any event nonprejudicial, the misinterpretation of Instructions Nos. 6 and 7, and the finding of errors in instructions not raised by appellants in the trial court in the manner required by rule 196, Eules of Civil Procedure, and which do not exist in any event.
Y. The majority opinion reverses the judgment against Nelle Cullen, intervenor, and remands the case with instructions to dismiss defendant’s counterclaim against her. The reason given is defendant’s pleading against her was technically insufficient in that it did not allege, with sufficient definiteness, her owner*712ship of the Hudson automobile with, wbicb defendant’s car collided. This overlooks other pleadings. Nelle Cullen was not an original party to the case. Sbe intervened and joined in the prayer of the petition of plaintiff Glenn Cullen. She prayed judgment against defendant, which included damages to the Hudson automobile. This necessarily was upon the theory she owned that automobile. Under the majority opinion Nelle Cullen’s case against defendant for damages to her Hudson automobile is remanded for retrial but defendant’s counterclaim against her is ordered dismissed because it is not claimed she owned the Hudson.
I would affirm the judgment as to all parties.
Gareield and Larson, JJ., join in this dissent.