Court Opinion

ID: 9595137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:36:25.222559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:35.021567
License: Public Domain

Littlejohn, Justice
(dissenting) :
Being of the opinion that the motion for a directed verdict should have been granted, I would respectfully dissent.
The evidence in this case establishes to the exclusion of all other reasonable inferences that the deceased voluntarily lay down in the road in the nighttime because he was tired. This is conclusively established by the testimony of plaintiff’s witness Boyd Rish and of the defendant, who talked with the deceased while he was conscious just after the accident. Mr. Rish testified: “He said he walked until he got tired and laid down.” From the testimony of Patrolman Allen Edward Hughes, who followed the deceased to the hospital, we quote the following:
“Q. Was any statement made as to why he was lying in the road ?
“A. The doctor went on and asked him, ‘Well, why were you laying in the road?’ And he said, ‘If you had walked as far as I had’ or ‘If you were as tired as I was,’ or something, ‘you would lay down too.’
“Q. ‘You would lay down too’ ?
“A. Yes, sir.
*177“Q. And that was ‘in the road’?
“A. Yes, sir.”
Any conclusion than that he voluntarily lay do.wn would be conjecture, as indicated by the trial judge at the end of all the testimony, when he stated to counsel:
“Well, there would be no basis upon which to put any kind of conjecture. His statement to others was that he just laid down, that he got tired. That’s the only evidence in the case on it, and I have to hold, as a matter of law, that he was negligent in so doing.”
Under the doctrine of last clear chance relied upon by respondent, the defendant might be held liable in spite of the negligence or even recklessness of the deceased if he had a clear opportunity by.the exercise of ordinary care to' avoid the injury after becoming aware that the deceased was in a position of peril.
The evidence shows that the defendant was driving his pickup'truck within the speed limits along a rural road in the middle o,f the night. He should not have been expected to anticipate that some person wo,uld be lying in the public roadway. He testified that he was at first of the impression that the object in the road was a paper bag and, further, that the deceased had on a tan looking shirt and his hair was some kind of brown. It is understandable that he might think the same to, be a bag, as did witness Ben O. Smith, who passed the deceased earlier, and testified that he thought it was “a bag that may have been a crocus sack sheet.” The defendant testified that it was not until he was “right straddle of it almost and I could see his face and I could see it was a person.” The defendant was not required to conduct himself as though the object in the road was a person until the circumstances were such as would lead a reasonably prudent driver to believe the object was probably a human being.
I conclude that this defendant found himself in a position of imminent peril while he himself was driving prudently and as a matter of law he did all that should be expected of *178him under the circumstances. The doctrine of last clear chance is not applicable where the emergency is so sudden that there is no time to avert the accident. The last clear chance must be a clear one.
I would reverse the lower court and enter judgment for the defendant.