Court Opinion

ID: 9628649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:27:59.376852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:03.293550
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(concurring specially) — The respondent Mary Torrez was injured without any fault of hers while riding on a public carrier, which was required by law to carry public indemnity insurance.
I am willing to agree with the result of the majority opinion for the reason that justice has been done. The result is in accord with the universal trend in judicial opinions of allowing recoveries without proof of any real negligence on the part of a carrier. The rule requiring carriers to exercise the highest degree of care is a subterfuge for allowing recoveries without showing any negligence, as in the present, case.
The facts in this case illustrate my point. The carrier-had been proceeding east on Yakima Avenue, which is a six-lane arterial street in the city of Yakima. It had been following an automobile, but when the carrier stopped at the railroad tracks the preceding automobile had drawn ahead. It caught up with the automobile at the red light, at the intersection with Front Street, a two-lane nonarterial street. When the light turned green, the carrier and the-automobile proceeded into the intersection at a speed, according to respondent Mary Torrez, of ten to fifteen miles an hour. The carrier was then following the automobile at a distance of about ten or twelve feet.
The carrier’s driver had looked to the right just as another automobile proceeding west on Yakima Avenue made a left, turn, in violation of RCW 46.60.160 and Yakima city ordinance No. B-1526, § 48(c), directly in front of the automobile preceding him. The carrier’s driver had not seen, the automobile make the illegal turn, but he did see the automobile preceding him stop abruptly and he, thereupon, applied-his brakes and brought the carrier to an abrupt-stop. He did not collide with the preceding automobile. The-abrupt stop threw the respondent Mary Torrez into the seat *307ahead of her with resulting injuries to her knee and back.
The carrier did not collide with the preceding automobile. The emergency created by the automobile making the illegal left turn obviously extended to all vehicles which had to stop abruptly because of it. These, of course, included the carrier and justified its abrupt stop just as it did that of the preceding car.
Unless it can be said that the carrier’s driver has a duty to save his passengers harmless even in the emergencies created by the illegal acts of others, it must be held that the carrier’s driver was not negligent under the circumstances of this case.
Upon this question, this court has held on many occasions “that a driver has the right to assume, until he knows or should know to the contrary, that the other users of the road will obey the rules of the road.” Nopson v. Seattle, 33 Wn. (2d) 772, 207 P. (2d) 674. See, also, Massengale v. Svangren, 41 Wn. (2d) 758, 252 P. (2d) 317; Peerless Food Products Co. v. Barrows, 49 Wn. (2d) 879, 307 P. (2d) 882; Henderson v. Bahlman, 50 Wn. (2d) 259, 310 P. (2d) 1077.
Since a driver has no duty to be prepared for emergencies created by the illegal acts of others, the carrier was not negligent prior to the abrupt stop nor because of it.
I think a tenable legal theory would be to hold the statutory requirement that carriers must carry public liability insurance before they can be permitted to operate is intended for the benefit of all passengers injured without their own fault. The scope of such coverage would put carriers in the position of insurers to that extent. The requirement that they take out insurance policies simply operates to provide a surety on their obligation to assume the full risk of injury to innocent passengers, which the statute intended to impose on carriers.
Such a legal theory comports more with judicial integrity than the subterfuge of finding negligence in cases where none exists.
I concur only in the result of the majority opinion.