Court Opinion

ID: 9584583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:50:23.645246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:48.534216
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
{dissenting). I must respectfully dissent. The jury found Fletcher negligent as to management and control, but that such negligence was not causal. I consider such negligence necessarily must be held to have been a substantial factor in causing the accident as a matter of law, and therefore constituted a proximate cause thereof.
Negligence in the management and control of a motor vehicle on the part of the operator thereof does not arise until such operator has by his lookout perceived something of potential danger that requires him to take some affirmative action on his part to avoid such danger. Reynolds v. Madison Bus Co. (1947), 250 Wis. 294, 306, 26 N. W. (2d) 653. If the threat of potential danger is the invading of his intended path of travel by another vehicle, as in the instant case, and he fails to see anything which indicates this is about to happen until it is too late for him to apply his brakes or swerve his vehicle to be effective in avoiding a collision, he *257cannot be held guilty of negligence as to management and’ control even though he thereafter does nothing. This is true regardless of whether or not he may have been negligent as to lookout.
In the case at bar Fletcher’s own testimony was that he did not see the Walters car enter the intersection until he was so close that he then could do nothing by way of application of brakes or swerving his truck which would have been effective to have avoided the accident. On the other hand, the distance that the Walters car traveled after Fletcher first saw it together with the slow speed at which it was traveling gave rise to the reasonable inference that Fletcher must have been considerably farther south of the intersection at the time when he saw the Walters car start to enter it than he had stated in his testimony, and, therefore, that he did have sufficient time to have applied his brakes or swerved his truck and avoided the accident. Thus a jury issue was presented as to whether Fletcher was negligent with respect to management and control.
However, when the jury found that he was negligent in this respect the jury necessarily must have determined that Fletcher did have sufficient time to have effectively applied his brakes or swerved his truck to have avoided the resulting collision after he first saw the Walters automobile entering the intersection. It, therefore, follows as a matter of law that such negligence must have been a substantial factor in causing the accident because it would not have happened but for Fletcher’s failure to take such effective action to avoid it. Restatement, 2 Torts, p. 1159, sec. 431, states:
“The actor’s negligent conduct is a legal cause of harm to another if
“(a) his conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, and
*258“(b) there is no rule of law relieving the actor from liability because of the manner in which his negligence has resulted in the harm.”
Therefore, the learned trial court on motions after verdict should have changed the jury’s answer from “No” to “Yes” in the causation question which was coupled with the question relating to Fletcher’s negligence as to management and control; and, upon the verdict as so changed, judgment should have been rendered against Fletcher and his insurance carrier as well as against the defendant Walters and her insurance carrier.