Court Opinion

ID: 9685619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:52:55.831088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:39.934246
License: Public Domain

STRUTZ, Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. An unbiased view of the evidence clearly shows that the plaintiffs have failed to establish, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, negligence of the defendant. Both drivers testified that they were traveling on their right side of the highway. If both were correct in their contentions, the vehicles should have passed each other without incident. No witnesses other than the drivers testified as to the position of the vehicles upon the highway at the time of impact, since the attention of other persons in the cars was directed elsewhere at that time. The trial judge, being unable to determine who was stating the facts correctly in this regard, did not rely upon the testimony of either driver, but based his findings upon the physical evidence, consisting chiefly of the debris and the markings on the road. This evidence, however, is unreliable because the debris *671had been removed by persons first arriving at the scene of the accident, in order to permit traffic to pass. No measurements were made by these witnesses, and they testified only from what they could recall.
There is some physical evidence, however, which I believe is entirely reliable, and that is the unbroken trail of coolant from the damaged radiator of the plaintiff’s car, which clearly establishes that the plaintiff’s vehicle was traveling, at least partially, on its wrong side of the road at the time of impact. This is evidence which cannot be disputed. The record discloses that the plaintiff’s car was traveling north, on the east side of the highway, yet the trail of coolant from plaintiff’s radiator commences two feet, five inches west of the center of the road and angles northeast to the point where the car came to rest. The record does not disclose just what part of the plaintiff’s radiator, from which the coolant escaped, was damaged, but, assuming that it was the left side since it was the left side of the car which was damaged, this evidence clearly establishes that the left side of plaintiff’s car was well over the centerline at the time of impact. It is well known that the radiator of an automobile does not extend to the outer edge of a car, and therefore it is fair to assume that the left side of the plaintiff’s vehicle was more than two feet, five inches over the centerline. In fact, it must have been at least three feet or more over the center-line at the time of the accident.
When two vehicles traveling in opposite directions meet partially head-on, the width of the damaged area on each vehicle will be the same. Therefore, since we know the path of the plaintiff’s automobile placed the left side of that car at least three feet over the centerline of the road, it is possible to determine from the width of the damage to each vehicle just where the defendant’s vehicle was traveling. The pictures introduced in evidence disclose that the area of impact on $ie left side of each vehicle was not greater than a foot to 1½ feet. Since we knew that the plaintiff’s car was traveling three feet over the cen-terline and that the area of damage on the vehicles clearly was less than two feet, the defendant’s vehicle must have been at least one foot or more to the right of the cen-terline.
The burden of proof was upon the plaintiff to establish, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant was negligent. I believe the plaintiff has wholly failed in this proof and that the judgment should be reversed.
TEIGEN, C. J., joins in this dissent.