Court Opinion

ID: 9848821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:28:00.393104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:48.304924
License: Public Domain

Fatzer, J.,
dissenting: The legal question presented is well settled in our law and it need not be labored. The action was one at common law in which plaintiff sought damages alleged to have resulted from defendant’s negligence, and the defendant has pleaded contributory negligence of the plaintiff. This is the kind of action in which each party is entitled to a trial to a jury as a matter of right. It should not be converted into a trial by the court. Negligence is the lack of due care. Contributory negligence is conduct on the part of the plaintiff which falls below the standard to which he should conform for his own protection and which is a legally contributing cause, cooperating with the negligence of the defendant, in bringing about the plaintiff’s injury. The instances are relatively rare when the facts are such that the court should say as a matter of law, the negligence or contributory negligence alleged has been established. Before such a holding is made, the evidence should be *101so clear that reasonable minds, considering it, could have but one opinion, that is, that the defendant was negligent, or that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent. (Lawrence v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 167 Kan. 45, 204 P. 2d 752.)
I am not disposed to labor the numerous negligence cases cited by the parties nor repeat the well-established rule of law applicable to a defendant’s demurrer to a plaintiff’s evidence involving negligence, proximate cause, and rules of the road. The ultimate question which the court reviews is one of law and is whether the record convicts the plaintiff of contributory negligence as a matter of law barring his recovery. On that point it is sufficient to say that in my opinion, and under the circumstances which attend, the question was one of fact upon which the minds of reasonable men might differ and should have been submitted to a jury under proper instructions by the district court. Likewise, the question whether plaintiff’s negligence, if any, was a proximate or contributing cause to his injury was also a question of fact to be submitted to a jury under proper instructions. (Reichenberger v. Rosenhagen, 187 Kan. 387, 357 P. 2d 776.)
In my opinion, the contributory negligence of plaintiff was clearly a question of fact for a jury. The plaintiff was not required to anticipate that, with his truck in the intersection, the defendant’s truck would be driven into and against it with the defendant not watching enough to know that the plaintiff’s truck was in the intersection and leaving it. Under the evidence presented, a jury might very well find the acts of the defendant to be the proximate cause of the injuries. The most that can be said for the defendant is that the question was one for a jury to determine. I would reverse the ruling on the demurrer.
Wertz and Robb, JJ., join in the foregoing dissent.