Court Opinion

ID: 9699925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:57:38.868261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:47.420469
License: Public Domain

*268Black, J.
(concurring). The opinion Mr. Justice Souris has proposed for this case is a step in the right direction, and I have signed it. More needs be said, however. That opinion, assuming it receives majority support, decides only that the judge-weighed testimony in this jury-tried case of Garrigan, unlike the judge-weighed testimony in the jury-tried case of Linabery v. LaVasseur, 359 Mich 122, did not—as a matter of law—destroy the statutory “presumption” of negligence. Which is to say that the trial lawyers and trial judges of Michigan are obliged to guess anon whether the rule of automatic disappearance, late of Linabery and formerly of Schillinger v. Wyman, 331 Mich 160, will or will not be applied in future like cases. Surely, “As a wedercok that turneth his face with every wind,”  we have repudiated, and then affirmed, and then by Linabery have repudiated again, the once-stabilized rules of Gillett v. Michigan United Traction Co., 205 Mich 410.
Does an admittedly applicable presumption “disappear” (vanish with finality, that is) during trial of a case when the first-—-or, for that matter, the last —of a series of witnesses relates his version of the testimonially disputatious issue to which the presumption has attached?2 Today, failing to overrule Linabery and yet reversing Judge Salmon, we give no answer. With the handing down of these opinions we have our trial judges whipsawed to an impossible position; that of trying to figure out whether Linabery or Garrigan will receive the nod should a like rear-end collision case, then at hand, arrive by appeal in the Supreme Court of Michigan.
*269Steadily through the supposed transitional period 1956 through 1959 we have been over this evidentiary ground (Welty v. Wolf Estate, 345 Mich 408, 419; Cary v. Thomas, 345 Mich 616, 633, 634; Hett v. Duffy, 346 Mich 456, 462-472, 476; Detroit Automobile Inter-Insurance Exchange v. Powe, 348 Mich 548, 555, 556; Steger v. Blanchard, 350 Mich 579; Weller v. Mancha, 351 Mich 50, 63, 64; Tien v. Barkel, 351 Mich 276, 285; Shaw v. Bashore, 353 Mich 31, 39; Steger v. Blanchard, 353 Mich 140; Weller v. Mancha, 353 Mich 189, 194; and Britten v. Updyke, 357 Mich 466, 473, 474), with result apparently settled in favor of Gillett’s general rule3 that an applicable presumption vanishes, or does not vanish, depending on jury appraisal of testimony which, assertedly and possibly, has rebutted the presumption.
Then came Linabery, and Dinahery’s restoration of “the egregious errors of the past.”4 Little wonder the whispered rumor that some of our trial judges have in recent months commenced tossing coins to determine which case or line of cases should be followed in making up jury instructions, peremptory or otherwise, for negligence cases. Does any testimony tending to rebut an applicable presumption *270destroy that presumption, then and there? Or, as in the years when this statute5 came first to judicial attention (Depue v. Schwarz, 222 Mich 308), is a presumption rebutted only by “direct, positive and credible evidence”? Or, as in Britten v. Updyke, supra, is it overcome simply by “credible” testimony? If an affirmative answer to the last question is made the rule of the day, who determines the question of credibility; the judge, or the jury? Oh, yes, our trial judges do have new problems; problems created rather than solved by the unsteady ebb and flow of opinion-signature around our hallowed conference table.
When the judge, presiding at jury trial of a negligence ease, assumes to instruct that an admittedly applicable presumption has vanished, he should have before him “direct, positive and credible rebutting evidence” on the basis of which he really may pronounce death sentence for the presumption.6. Otherwise the question whether such presumption has been overcome should he settled — on proper instruction of course — in the jury room.
It is regrettable that this Court, duty-bound as it is to lay down dependable rules for the. guidance of lawyers and judges, is not ready to reiterate these helpful precepts of the 1920’s as the year 1961 plunges into time. As said by Mr. Justice Fellows in People v. Rich, 237 Mich 481, 497: “We are not only deciding this case, but we are also laying down rules for the guidance of the judiciary and the profession in future cases.”
*271It simply is not true that a presumption vanishes when some witness testifies in apparent contradiction thereof. The testimony given by such witness might be shown, on cross-examination or otherwise, as being so palpably false that no one in the courtroom would give it credit. Examine Cebulak v. Lewis, 320 Mich 710, 716-727 (5 ALR2d 186), and Krisher v. Duff, 331 Mich 699, 705-713, where each plaintiff prevailed on strength of the statutory presumption of “knowledge and consent” despite devout testimony in each case to the contrary. Any valid presumption, being provisionally applicable in a negligence case, disappears as a matter of law when and only when it is overcome in the evidentiary circumstances made clear in Gillett, Cebulak, and Krisher. And it disappears as a matter of fact when and only when, the trial being to a properly instructed jury, the jury — not the judge — finds credible testimony which rebuts the presumption.
Now let us examine the testimonial record to ascertain — under the precepts of Gillett, Cebulah, and Krisher rather than Linabery — whether the statutory presumption of negligence on the part of this rear-end collider “disappeared” during the trial.
Plaintiff repeatedly testified that defendant’s truck overtook and passed him, and resumed position in the extreme right-hand traffic lane, when it was “about 750 feet” from the intersection; that at such time his truck was “about 30 feet” behind defendant’s truck; that the distance between the 2 trucks was thereafter increased to “about 80 feet”; that for 11 to 12 seconds (this is plaintiff’s own estimate) he followed defendant’s' truck at a distance of approximately 80 feet and at an estimated speed (this again is plaintiff’s estimate) of 58 to 60 feet per second. This, prima facie, was continuously too fast and too close, as testified mutely by the collisive force and actual re-*272suit of the dual impacts of truck against truck and load against cab.
Assuming as-against presently related physical facts that plaintiff’s estimate of separational distance and approximate common rates of speed of the 2 trucks was credible, it is preponderantly evident that plaintiff causally violated 2 traffic safety statutes, the mandatory requirements of which combine in making up the primary rule of traffic safety. Given ample time and’distance within which to conform with the “assured-clear distance rule” (CLS 1956, § 257.627, as amended by PA 1957, No 190 [Stat Ann 1957 Cum Supp § 9.2327] )  and the statutory inhibition against following “another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent” (CLS 1956, § 257.643 [Stat-Ann 1960 Rev § 9.2343]), plaintiff’s testified failure to safely increase the driving space between the southbound trucks of'the parties persuasively became a concurrent cap.se of that which ensued damagewise. Is it, considering these statutes with the presumption, exculpatorily proper to pursue another motor vehicle at such speed and separating space when the pursuer is operating a 7-ton loaded truck equipped with brakes designed for a lighter load? Is the statutory presumption destroyed, by such proof, as a matter of law? The physical facts and other testimony give—or tend to give—fair answer to these questions.
The unusual violence of this collision (on a dry and tractive pavement and in broad daylight) testifies persuasively that plaintiff transgressed, with legally foreseeable result, the 2 statutes cited above. It required the nearly-one-hour labor of a garage crew, utilizing hacksaws and hydraulic jacks, to extricate him from the cab of his truck. The effect of emergency application of brakes and the impact of *273collision hurled plaintiff’s 7-ton load of car batteries forward, against the rear of the steel cab, as “the motor came back,” thus crushing plaintiff between the forced-together fore and aft portions of the cab. It was necessary to saw off the hinges of the cab door and to saw the steering column completely off at 2 separate points, and then to jack the crumpled front and rear of the cab apart, before plaintiff could be and was removed to an ambulance. Does proof like this rebut the statutory presumption, as a matter of automatons law? ■ If it does, the statute is lifeless and useless.
When during the 750-foot distance traveled by the 2 trucks the space between them was increased to 80 feet (as plaintiff says), it was far from enough to satisfy the traffic safety requirements of the cited statutes. The first is regularly referred to as “a rule of safety” (Ruth v. Vroom, 245 Mich 88, 91 [62 ALR 1528]; Lewis v. Yund, 339 Mich 441, 444), and it calls imperatively for maintenance of that distance between the pursued vehicle and the pursuing vehicle as will enable the driver of the latter to avoid the very kind of traffic carnage this record portrays. So, when the pursuing driver violates these statutory rules of safety, he does not render the statutory presumption ineffective. Instead, he confirms its applicability to him.
So far, presumption and “contrary” proof standing in array before us, I have accepted plaintiff’s testimony generally at face value. Now I would look to the rest of the record to ascertain whether such presumption should have been ousted from the case by instruction.
The record shows beyond doubt that the primary cause of plaintiff’s multiple injuries was the impact of the 7-ton blow from behind as his truck smashed into the truck ahead. Plaintiff himself testified that the “load had shifted on the bed and dented the back *274of the truck and it had me pinned where I couldn’t move, couldn’t take a deep hreath.” The investigating officer (member of the State police force) testified that the shift of the load forward, on impact, was “what actually pinned Mr. Garrigan in.” This testimony becomes understatement upon examination of photographic exhibit No. 6, showing from the driver’s side the crunched-from-the-rear cab of plaintiff’s truck. The cab was not built or bulk-headed to withstand such an impact as the combination of emergency application of brakes and the stopping force of collision hurled the load forward.
This is not all, as we examine the question whether plaintiff credibly overcame the statutory presumption. He testified:
“Q. Now, there isn’t any question but what it was the front end of your truck that collided with the rear end of the Coca-Cola truck, is there?
“A. No. That’s right.
“Q. When the stoplights went on on the Coca-Cola truck, you say you were about what, 40 or 50 feet behind it?
“A. No. I was about 80 feet behind it.
“Q. You were about 80 feet behind it. And you were going how fast ?
“A. I was going about 40 miles an hour. * * *
“Q. Well, at any rate, you were following 80 feet behind the Coco-Cola truck when he applied his brakes, you were unable to stop within that 80 feet, is that correct ?
“A. Yes, sir.”
Plaintiff was following defendant’s truck too closely, speed and available deceleration considered. He was violating the assured-clear-distanee rule and, adding to the culpability of his negligence, was carrying a load which meant continuous danger to him as well as those who — negligently or otherwise— were using of corresponding right the highway *275ahead.8 Let us suppose that, instead of the heavy— and heavily armored and more unyielding — Coca-Cola truck ahead, the slowing and planned-for-turn vehicle had been an ordinary automobile driven by the head of a dependent family and he, the head of that family, had been killed by the force of Mr. Garrigan’s rear-end blow? Would not the beneficiaries of the resultant cause for wrongful death enjoy, at start of the trial at least, the benefit of 2 presumptions one the presumption of the defendant driver’s negligence and the other the presumption of due care of the decedent? The answer of course would have to he “yes.”
My Brother Carr’s opinion considered, however, both presumptions would disappear as soon as the defendant driver or, say, some hitchhiker riding with him, commences his testimony to the manner and cause or causes of such rear-end collision. Thus some of our members would open the way — again as in the sad days of Schillinger, supra — to more and more directed verdicts in wrongful death cases where the bereaved family has no witnesses to meet the testimony of one whose right of weight has prevailed at the scene of tragedy.
To recapitulate: No one disagrees with the general rule that a rebuttable presumption cannot he weighed against testimony. Lay, then, that wordplay aside. When some Brother writes, however, *276that a presumption — any presumption — “disappears” upon admission of some or any testimony tending to oppose or contradict it, we divide sharply. The right rule, as I read our considered cases, is simply this: If the proof received in rebuttal is “direct, positive and credible,” and is free from doubt, the trial judge is justified in casting the presumption out of the case. If such proof is not “direct, positive and credible,” or is subject to some doubt, then the jury is instructed to determine the legal fate of the presumption. The jury considers the rebuttal proof and, if the members find such proof to be of no value, it applies the presumption which has “remained in abeyance pending the jury’s reaching this preliminary decision.” If, on the other hand, such rebuttal proof is by the jury found worthy, then the presumption, so held in abeyance, “disappears.” Gillett, Cebulah, and Krisher make this a rule of reason; which the automatic disappearance rule is not.
This particular statute was placed in our books more than 40 years ago. It was placed there for the protection of the motoring public. It remains in effect today as originally worded. Its evidentiary strengh (yes, “evidentiary strength”) is if anything greater than that of its counterpart of motordom: the statutory presumption of “knowledge and consent” (CLS 1956, § 257.401 [Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 9-.2101]). The reason is that this particular statute does something more than create “a mere presumption.” The requisite premises established (as they are in this case), it “deems” — adjudges that is — a prima facie case of guilt of negligence on the part of the rear-end collider. Whether such prima facie case has been overcome is, in the absence of direct, positive and credible rebutting evidence, a question for consideration and determination of a properly instructed jury.
*277In this instance the prima facie case, made by the statute in conjunction with plaintiff’s declaration, was not overcome as a matter of law. Whether it was overcome in fact cannot be determined until a duly-instructed jury reports back.
Some of us, lawyers all on and off the bench, look hopefully to that day when the Supreme Court of Michigan emerges from- this Dickens-depicted legal fog9 long enough to say, firmly, that the prima facie case of negligence made by the act of 1919 10 is overcome—as a matter of law—when and only when the record justifies peremptory instruction that the rear-end collider has acquitted himself of negligence. Until then, I stand by the rule of Gillett, Cebulak, and Krisher.

APPENDIX

Sections 192.9(a) and 193.85 of “Motor Carrier Safety Regulations” promulgated by the interstate commerce commission under 49 USCA, § 304—taken from revision of 1952 including amendments as of December 31,1957. 49 CFR 1960 Supp.
“Sec. 192.9 Safe loading—(a) Distribution and securing of load. No motor vehicle shall he driven nor shall any motor carrier permit or require any motor vehicle to be driven if it is so loaded, or if the load thereon is so improperly distributed or so inadequately secured, as to prevent its safe operation.”
“Sec. 193.85 Protection against shifting cargo. Every motor vehicle carrying cargo such as beams, pipes, sheet steel, and heavy rolls, the nature of which is such that the shifting thereof due to rapid deceleration or accident would be likely to result in penetration or crushing of the driver’s compartment must, *278in addition to having the load securely fastened or braced, be provided with header boards or similar devices of sufficient strength to prevent such shifting and penetration. All motor vehicles shall be so constructed or be equipped with adequate cargo fastening devices so that the load will not penetrate the cargo compartment wall when subjected to the maximum braking deceleration of which the vehicle is' capable.”

 Consider the analogous presumption of due execution and attestation of a contested will and our treatment thereof in In re Dalton Estate, 346 Mich 613, and. In re Dettling Estate, 351 Mich 335, 341.

 “While the above may serve as a rough classification of the decisions relative to the presumption of due care, it will be seen that the real test in each case is -whether or not the evidence tending to show contributory negligence, be it direct or circumstantial, is so conclusive that reasonable and unprejudiced minds could not fail to be convinced that decedent was careless. If there is room for reasonable doubt, the question must be submitted to the jury. And while the jury, in weighing the evidence, may not consider the presumption, yet if, uninfluenced by the presumption, they reach the conclusion that the evidence tending to show decedent’s negligence is not entitled to credit and should be disregarded, the presumption may then be considered as remaining in force so far as may be necessary to establish the fact that the deceased exercised proper care in all respects not expressly established by the evidence. It was not entirely displaced, but remained in abeyance pending the jury’s reaching this preliminary decision as to the credence to be given the evidence on the particular point in which negligence was claimed.” (Gillett, supra, p 421, emphasis supplied.)

 The expression is that of Mr. Justice Smith, written in Sheppard v. Michigan National Bank, 348 Mich 577, 582.

 “In any action, in any court in this State when it is shown by competent evidence, that a vehicle traveling in a certain direction, overtook and struck the rear end of another vehicle proceeding in the same direction, or lawfully standing upon any highway within this State, the driver or operator of such first mentioned vehicle shall be deemed prima facie guilty of negligence.” (CLS 1956,'§ 257.-402 [Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 9.2102].)

 See Gillett, pp 415, 416.

 To overload a motor truck, or to load any motor truck to capacity in sueli way that its load is apt to "be driven forward into or through the rear of the cab by the combination of emergency deceleration and straight-ahead collision, and then to drive such truck on modern superhighways at more than extremely moderate rates of speed, is potent evidence of negligence. See, in such connection, ICG safety regulations 192.9 and 193.85, quoted in the appendix.
“These regulations have been in effect since June 1, 1952, and must be complied with by all motor carriers (49 CFR 193.1). Having been made in pursuance of constitutional statutory authority, they have the same force as though prescribed in terms by the statute. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Scarlett (1937), 300 US 471, 474 (57 S Ct 541, 81 L ed 748) ; Interstate Motor Lines, Inc., v. Great Western R. Co. (1947) (CCA 10), 161 F2d 968.” New Amsterdam Casualty Co. v. Novick Transfer Co. (CCA 4), 274 F2d 916, 919.

 Read first chapter of “Bleak House.”