Court Opinion

ID: 9543253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:43:43.603758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:02.004635
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Justice
(dissenting).
I have read the evidence of both the plaintiff and the defendants and I can find no evidence of negligence on the part of the agents of the defendants that was the proximate cause of the injuries to the plaintiff. The two employees of the defendants drove the wrecker to the point where the Willowby car was in the ditch. They proceeded to the top of the hill and to the north turned the wrecker around and drove down to the Willowby car. There they pulled the wrecked car out after putting it up on its wheels. This was at about three-thirty P.M. in broad daylight. It was a dark day but there is no evidence that the wrecker and the Willowby car could not be seen from the crest of the hill to the north and were so seen by the plaintiff as she came over the hill. Although there is testimony that the agents of the defendants had a blinker light on the wrecker in operation and that a fusee was lighted at the top of this hill to the north *823which was controverted, it is immaterial because there was no duty on the part of defendants’ agents to have either lighted. No statute has been pointed out that prohibits the defendants from using a wrecker to get cars out of the ditch. No one testified that the manner in which the agents of defendants did their job was careless or negligent. At the time the plaintiff came over the hill the wrecker and the Willowby car were on the west half of the asphalt roadway. The wrecker may have been slightly over the center line to the east but there was still sufficient space for plaintiff to have gotten by if she had had her car under control.
I know of no requirement of our laws that says a wrecker may not use the entire roadway, if necessary, to get a car from the ditch. Only ordinary care would be required under such circumstances. No one testified that such care was not used or that there might have been a safer way to do the job. In the case of Oklahoma Power & Water Co. v. Howell, 201 Okl. 615, 207 P.2d 937, we had a similar case before us and we held as follows:
“Rule 10 of the Road, 69 O.S.1941, § 583, subdivision 10, providing that when a motor vehicle is brought to a stop on a hard-surfaced highway, the left side of motor vehicle must be to the right of the center of the highway at least three feet, does not prohibit the temporary blocking of a highway by a service truck, or wrecking truck, in an endeavor to extricate a stalled or disabled truck from a ditch along side the highway.”
Although Rule 10 of the Rules of the Road, having to do with parking has been repealed, a similar statute has been adopted and at no time has the Legislature said that a wrecker might not temporarily block a highway in an endeavor to extricate a stalled or disabled vehicle from a ditch along side the highway in daylight. I wish to quote from the aforementioned case on this point:
“Plaintiff contends that defendant, by so placing its trucks on the highway as to entirely obstruct traffic, was guilty of a violation of Rule 10 of the Road, 69 O.S.1941 § 583, subdivision 10, and that this violation was negligence per se. Rule 10 reads as follows:
“ ‘Rule 10. Be it further provided that when a motor vehicle is brought to a stop on a hard-surfaced highway the left side of the motor vehicle must be to the right of the center of said highway at least three feet.’
“His contention is briefly stated, that any obstruction of the highway by the stopping of automobiles or trucks thereon for any purpose is a violation of that statute.
“We are unable to agree with this contention. We have not heretofore passed upon the application of that statute to a state of facts similar to that in the instant case, but we think that the use of a highway by a wrecker or rescue truck, in order to extricate a stuck or disabled truck and help it regain the highway and proceed, or be towed to a place where it may be repaired, is not forbidden by the statute. Plaintiff does not cite any case so holding, and we have been unable to find any. On the contrary, the courts of several states, in construing similar statutes, have held that the temporary blocking of the highway by a wrecking truck attempting to pull a stranded or disabled car back on the highway is not violative of such statute. Thus in Henry v. [S.] Liebovitz & Sons, Inc., 312 Pa. 397, 167 A. 304, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, construing a statute which provided that in no event should any person park or leave standing any vehicle, either attended or unattended, upon any highway unless a clear and unobstructed width of not less than fifteen feet upon the main traveled portion of the highway opposite the standing vehicle should be left free for the passage of other vehi*824cles, held that the temporary obstruction of the highway by a towing truck, which was attempting to pull a disabled car back on the road by using a chain attached to such car, was not within the prohibition of the statute. ⅝ ⅝ ¾‡⅞
I think the foregoing case and the authorities mentioned therein adequately sustain the defendants’ case.
It is to be remembered that persons using the highway to get vehicles out of a ditch on the side thereof have the right to think that other persons operating motor vehicles on the highway will conform to our statute regulating the speed of such vehicles and particularly 47 O.S.Supp.1955 § 121.3 (a), which is as follows:
“Any person driving a vehicle on a highway shall drive the same at a careful and prudent speed not greater than nor less than is reasonable and proper, having due regard to the traffic, surface and width of the highway and any other conditions then existing, and no person shall drive any vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than will permit him to bring it to a stop within the assured clear distance ahead; * * (emphasis added)
The plaintiff relies on the case of R & S Auto Service et al. v. McGill, 205 Okl. 495, 238 P.2d 1089, to sustain the judgment in this case. That is clearly distinguishable from the case at bar in that the accident out of which the cause of action arose occurred at night. The statutes make a greater requirement for vehicles blocking a highway at night than in the day time. 47 O.S.1951 § 148, Par. (b) is as follows:
“Every vehicle upon a highway within this State, at any time from half hour after sunset, to a half hour before sunrise, and at any other time when there is not sufficient light to render clearly discernible, persons and vehicles on the highway at a distance of five hundred (5007) feet ahead shall display lighted lamps and illuminating devices as hereinafter respectively required for different classes of vehicles, subject to exceptions with respect to parked vehicles as hereinafter stated.
“Whenever requirement is hereinafter declared as to the distance from which certain lamps and devices shall render objects visible, or within which such lamps or devices shall be visible, said provisions shall apply during the time stated in paragraph (b) of this Section upon a straight, level, unlighted highway under normal atmospheric conditions unless a different time or condition' is expressly stated.
“Whenever requirement is hereinafter declared as to the mounted height of lamps or devices it shall mean from the center of such lamp or device to the level ground upon which the vehicle stands.”
No one testified that this wrecker was not discernible at five hundred feet, as provided by the above Section. The plaintiff testified as follows:
“ * * * I looked down below me — I am sure I had slowed down just before that because you would pick up> a little speed to go up the hill and then when I topped the hill I slowed down and the first thing I saw in the road— I don’t think I would have made out it was a car and a wrecker, it happened so fast, but there was an object there in the road and as soon as I saw it I stepped on my power brakes and instead of the brakes holding the car skidded and the back end swung around' to the front and it made it’s way then on down to the ditch and it was facing more back up the hill then when it stopped.”
The witnesses, Andrews and Mysinger,. for the plaintiff had no difficulty in seeing the wrecker before and after the accident.
There being no evidence of negligence on the part of defendants’ servants and employees, I think the majority opinion is wrong and I dissent.