Court Opinion

ID: 9559806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:35:54.149374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:44.882315
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority opinion. The effect of the holding is to determine that defendant was guilty of primary negligence as a matter of law because the right wheel of her car dropped off in a rut at the edge of the road. I believe that such question is a fact question to be determined by the jury.
The authorities from other jurisdictions are in great conflict on the question involved. Some cases are to be found holding that evidence of the nature presented here constitutes prima facie negligence. Other cases are to be found holding that such evidence presents a fact question for determination by the jury. Still other cases are to be found holding that such evidence constitutes no evidence of primary negligence whatsoever.
While the Oklahoma authorities on the question are few, I am of the opinion that we have heretofore adopted the view that such evidence presents a question for determination by the jury.
In the case of Hartman v. Dunn, 186 Okl. 9, 95 P.2d, 897, 901, which involved an automobile wreck, the evidence showed that when defendant steered the car to the right the car swerved in loose gravel, got out of control and the accident resulted. We said in that case:
“It was not within the province of the trial court’s duties to determine, as a matter of law, whether this accident was unavoidable. Under the evidence, the matter was properly submitted to the jury and we find no error in the instruction given.”
In the case of Kelly v. Employers Casualty Co., 202 Okl. 437, 214 P.2d 925, 929, wherein the question of the propriety of an instruction on unavoidable accident was concerned, we said:
“Negligence is not an element of unavoidable accident but it must be the result of unforeseen circumstances and conditions producing it and which could not have been avoided except by the exercise of ‘ exceptional foresight. Eliminating all elements of negligence, the only fact which would demonstrate the unavoidable nature of the collision would be the close proximity of the truck to the rear end of plaintiff’s car at the instant she reduced the speed from 35 to 25 miles per hour. There is no such evidence. We think this instruction was not authorized by any fact established by the evidence nor by any reasonable inferences which may be drawn from the facts in evidence.”
, The corollary of the holding of case from which quotation was taken would be course be that if there had been evidence of the close proximity of-the truck to the rear end of plaintiff’s car at the instant she reduced its speed from 35 to. 25 miles per hour, then an instruction on unavoidable accident inter alia would have been proper.
In the case at bar, the defendant pleaded unavoidable accident as a defense. In Wilson v. Roach, 101 Okl. 30, 222 P. 1000, we defined an unavoidable accident as a casual*259ty which occurs without negligence of either party and when all means which common prudence suggests have been used to prevent it. The determination of whether unavoidable accident was available as a -defense in this case of necessity involves a determination of whether the acts of the defendant constituted negligence. I am of the opinion that such determination is one for the jury and not for this court and I therefore respectfully dissent.