Court Opinion

ID: 9740877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:43:48.844507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.223757
License: Public Domain

MORAN, J., dissenting: The majority holding clearly conflicts with the holding of our Supreme Court in Smith v. Bishop, 32 Ill2d 380, 205 NE2d 461, wherein it was determined that “unless the passenger sees an obvious danger which the driver might not see, there would be no duty to warn him.” Id. at 384. The unimpeached testimony of the plaintiff was that although she saw the Fletcher car at a distance of seventy-five feet, she was not expecting a collision. However, the majority says that she must warn the driver of her car about the imminence of a collision that she does not think is going to occur, i. e., when the plaintiff sees something which to her is not an obvious danger, she must nevertheless treat it as an obvious danger and warn of it. The logic of this reasoning escapes me. The reasonableness of plaintiff’s belief that no collision was imminent is substantiated by the fact that the Mitroka car was almost out of the intersection when the collision occurred and that the Fletcher car struck the Mitroka car at its extreme right rear, thus indicating that if another fraction of a second had transpired, the collision would not have occurred. “One riding in a motor vehicle driven by another has the right to assume that the driver will exercise proper care and caution, until he has notice to the contrary. He is entitled to repose confidence in the driver’s operation of the vehicle and to assume that he is alert to other traffic until it becomes apparent to one in the exercise of due care that the driver is inattentive. Acceptance of the driver’s manner of operating the vehicle is not ordinarily contributory negligence unless the driver’s fault or incompetence is so obvious as to demand effort on the guest’s part to abate the danger.” 8 Am Jur, § 527, page 84. See also Blashfield, Cyclopedia of Automobile Law and Practice, Vol 4, pages 553-554. The majority, in effect, recognize this principle by saying that the plaintiff was “under no duty as a back seat driver to supervise the operation of the car in which she was riding.” However, the result they reach is exactly opposite to the principle they espouse. Assuming that a duty for her to warn her driver did arise as a result of her observation of the Fletcher automobile, this would still not defeat her recovery, for her failure to warn could not have been a contributing cause to the accident. “It is well settled that even where a plaintiff may be guilty of negligence he will not, for this reason alone, be prevented from recovering in an action for injuries unless it is also shown that such negligence contributed to the accident.” Hagen v. Bailus, 283 Ill App 249 at 251. It is apparent that plaintiff’s failure to warn her driver, if it can be termed a failure, could not have been a contributing cause of the accident for there was not sufficient time in which to voice a warning which could have directed her driver as to the appropriate action to take to avoid the impending collision. She testified that she saw the Fletcher car at a distance of seventy-five feet traveling at a speed of forty miles per hour. This would have given her little more than a second to voice a warning which would have prevented the accident. It is beyond the range of possibility that plaintiff could have taken any action in this short time which would have averted the accident. Hence, it cannot be said that her negligence, if indeed there was any negligence on her part, could have been the proximate cause of the accident which resulted in her injuries. Then, too, even if we assume that the Fletcher car was in obvious danger when plaintiff saw it, I would still see no duty to warn for Mitroka was well into the intersection, making a left turn, when plaintiff saw the Fletcher car. It was then too late to protest, for the danger was already there. It is one thing to warn a driver of a danger unknown to him, and quite another to give direction when danger is already imminent. One may prevent an accident; the other may tend to create an additional hazard. For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and order a new trial on damages alone between the plaintiff and the defendant, Fletcher.