Court Opinion

ID: 9711729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:37:53.522349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.115559
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
(dissenting). Cenefelt testified that as soon as he saw the pickup truck driven by Paradise emerge from behind the cornfield he knew that it was going too fast to stop in time to avoid a collision, and he (Cenefelt) immediately took his foot off the accelerator and applied the brakes. In spite of this prompt action on Cenefelt’s part to stop his truck, he succeeded, according to his own story, only in reducing his speed from 35 or 40 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour as of the instant of impact. The distance traveled by Cenefelt’s truck after the accident tends to fully corroborate his testimony in this respect.
The jury absolved Cenefelt' of any failure to keep a proper lookout. We thus have a situation where Cenefelt saw the *177other vehicle to the left as soon as it was possible to see it as it came into view from behind’ the cornfield and continued toward the intersection. Furthermore, he took such prompt action in applying his brakes that the question of management and control on his part was not properly submitted to the jury. From this it is established conclusively that Cenefelt, as he approached the intersection with its badly obstructed view to his left, was exceeding a lawful speed.
We of the minority are of the opinion that the words “at an appropriate reduced speed” appearing in sec. 85.40 (2) (b), Stats., as applied to an operator of a motor vehicle approaching an intersection the view of which is obstructed, should be interpreted to mean at such speed as will enable the operator to stop his vehicle within the distance between the point at which he can first see another vehicle approaching on the intersecting highway and a point short of a possible point of impact. Unless the statute is so interpreted, it would not only be superfluous but utterly futile to hold that such an operator had any duty whatever to keep a lookout for traffic approaching ,on an intersecting highway. What utility does keeping a proper lookout serve, unless at the same time an 'operator maintains a speed which will permit him to take some effective action to avoid a possible collision?
Few country highway intersections have total obstructions to vision so close to the traveled portion of the highway as did the particular intersection involved in this accident. At the vast majority of the intersections of his route of travel on the day of the accident, a speed of 35 to 40 miles per hour would undoubtedly have allowed Cenefelt, upon seeing a vehicle approaching on an intersecting highway, sufficient time to stop his truck so as to avoid the collision. However, at this particular intersection his view of the traffic approaching on the intersecting highway was so ob*178structed that such a speed was too great to permit stopping in due time.
Because such speed was too great to permit Cenefelt to stop his truck within the distance between the point at which he first was able to sight the vehicle approaching on the intersecting town road and a point short of the point of impact, as a matter of law Cenefelt should have been held negligent with respect to the speed at which he operated his truck.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Chief Justice Fritz and Mr. Justice Currie join in this dissent.