Court Opinion

ID: 9698052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:40:26.288521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:37.966024
License: Public Domain

Hammond, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Bruñe, C. J., concurred.
The record shows no emergency that, as a matter of law, justified Mason’s inability or failure to control his car under the circumstances that confronted him.
The measured distance between Bourbon Street and the railroad tracks is 182 feet. The point of impact was 35 feet south of Bourbon Street, that is, 147 feet from the tracks. The passenger riding with Mason in the Lincoln said that when that car was at the tracks, he and Mason saw the headlights of the Ford facing them on their side of the road. At that instant the two cars must have been about 180 feet apart—little less than the full effective range of car headlights. Certainly, the evidence would have permitted the jury to find that the Ford, after backing out of Bourbon Street, had just straightened out and was facing south on Juniata Street when the Lincoln was at the railroad tracks. Further, the jury could have found that the Ford went but 35 feet south *441while the Lincoln was going 145 feet north, and that after the impact the Lincoln still had enough momentum to careen to the left off the road. The skidmarks of the Lincoln, according to the policeman, started just north of the railroad tracks and continued to the point of impact. Admittedly, Mason did not attempt to avoid the Ford by turning to the right or to the left except at the last split second, nor did he sound his horn or blink his lights to engage the attention of the other driver. In Palmer Ford, Inc. v. Rom, 216 Md. 165, 168, Judge Henderson, for the Court, said that (a) failure of a following driver to see and regard signals given from a car 100 feet ahead, (b) skidmarks 55 feet in length and (c) failure to sound the horn, permitted the drawing of an inference of negligence.
In the case at bar Mason did nothing to avoid the collision but put on his brakes. The braking was either too late or too little successfully to cope with the speed the car was travelling and did not stop it or slow it to effective maneuver-ability within a reasonable time. A motorist driving in a town in a prudent and reasonable manner can control his car well within 145 feet, and one who cannot, when conditions require, is not, in my opinion, free of negligence as a matter of law.
This Court has said and held, many times before Palmer Ford, Inc. v. Rom, supra, that failure or inability properly to control a car, from which negligence may be inferred, may be found from the admission that the object struck was seen when far enough away to have permitted a careful driver to have avoided it, or from the late application of the brakes, or from long skidmarks, or the fact that the car goes an extraordinary distance after the brakes are applied. We have said that these, in varying combinations, are evidences of negligence that will take a case to the jury. Bozman v. State, Use of Cronhardt, 177 Md. 151, 154. See Jackson v. Forwood, 186 Md. 379, 383; Miller v. Graff, 196 Md. 609; Graff v. Davidson Transfer and Storage Co., 192 Md. 632. For a somewhat analogous situation, compare Ford v. Bradford, 213 Md. 534.
There was testimony from which all of these could be inferred in the case before us. They show that Mason had both *442time and reasonable opportunity to avoid the obvious and admittedly negligent conduct of the driver of the Ford, and that there was no emergency which justified either his inability properly to maneuver his car, by reason of excessive speed, or his failure to do so for any reason.
The judgments appealed from should be affirmed.
Judge Bruñe has authorized me to say he concurs in this opinion.