Bruin v. Tribble
| Decision Date | 07 November 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 7248.,7248. |
| Citation | 238 F.2d 12 |
| Parties | Nancy BRUIN, Appellant, v. G. P. TRIBBLE, Allen Harper and One 1953 White Tractor bearing 1954 Georgia License Plate A/H4892, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
W. Brantley Harvey, Sr., Beaufort, S. C. (Harvey & Harvey, Beaufort, S. C., on the brief), for appellant.
G. L. B. Rivers, Charleston, S. C. (Joseph R. Young and Hagood, Rivers & Young, Charleston, S. C., on the brief), for appellees.
Before SOPER and SOBELOFF, Circuit Judges, and BRYAN, District Judge.
This appeal was taken from an order of the District Court whereby judgment non obstante veredicto was entered for the defendants, the owner and the driver of a tractor-trailer, after the jury had found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff who was injured in a collision with the truck on the night of July 1, 1954, on a public road in the town of Bluffton, South Carolina. The judge in the first instance refused to direct a verdict for the defendant and submitted the case to the jury, which found a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $1380.85 actual damages and $1000.00 punitive damages; but thereafter, upon motion of the defendant, the judge reconsidered the case and being of the opinion that the plaintiff was guilty of gross contributory negligence, as a matter of law, entered the judgment appealed from.
The evidence taken most favorably to the plaintiff — there was in fact little conflict — made out the following case. The accident occurred at a road-crossing where Calhoun Street, the main thoroughfare of the town running northerly, comes to a dead end when it meets State Highway No. 46, which runs East and West. Nancy Bruin was an elderly woman who lived on the North side of the Highway a short distance West of Calhoun Street. She had been to church and was driven home by her pastor in his automobile. She alighted from the car at a stop sign which was located on the East side of Calhoun Street a few feet South of the Highway. The pastor then rounded the corner in his car and drove East on the Highway towards his residence, which was situated about two blocks from the intersection. As he traversed the first block he passed the defendant's truck, which was well lighted and was proceeding slowly at a point about 200 feet East of the point of collision. In the meantime, Nancy Bruin, who was clad in a gray dress, walked North on the sidewalk on the East side of Calhoun Street until she reached the Highway and then crossed the Highway to a point within two or three feet of the North edge of the paved portion and was in the act of turning to her left when, for the first time, she saw the lights of the truck and was instantly struck down by the right front end of the vehicle. At the same moment the truck driver first saw the woman and, as he was driving very slowly, he was able to stop the vehicle within two or three feet. There was nothing to prevent the woman from seeing the approaching well lighted truck as she crossed the Highway, and there was nothing to prevent the driver from seeing the woman as he approached the intersection since there were no other vehicles in sight and the truck was equipped with headlights and other lights, and there was an overhead street light located almost directly over the point of collision.
Under these circumstances, it was error in our opinion to upset the verdict of the jury. The adverse decision was based on cases like Hicks v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 187 S.C. 301, 197 S.E. 819, and Robinson v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 179 S.C. 493, 184 S.E. 96, in which a pedestrian was injured while attempting to cross a railroad track in front of an approaching train in plain sight; or cases like the decision of this Court in Smith v. Biggs, 223 F.2d 839, where a pedestrian entered a heavily traveled dual highway from the dividing space in the nighttime in the country at a point where there was no crosswalk or intersection. In these cases gross negligence on the part of the injured persons taking the risk of crossing without looking was completely obvious, but they are of little help for our present purposes. It cannot be said that the conduct...
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Eastern Brick and Tile Co. v. United States, Civ. A. No. 66-449.
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