Anderson v. Eagle Motor Lines, Inc., 28112.

• Citation: 423 F.2d 81
• Decision Date: 16 February 1970
• Docket Number: No. 28112.,28112.
• Parties: Margaret L. ANDERSON et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. EAGLE MOTOR LINES, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

423 F.2d 81 (1970)

Margaret L. ANDERSON et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. EAGLE MOTOR LINES, INC., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 28112.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

February 16, 1970.

Cary E. Bufkin, James P. Cothren, Satterfield, Shell, Williams & Buford, Jackson, Miss., for appellant.

Francis S. Bowling, Jackson, Miss., James F. Noble, Jr., Brookhaven, Miss., Bowling & Coleman, Jackson, Miss., for appellees.

Before AINSWORTH, DYER and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges.

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge:

Appellant, Eagle Motor Lines, Inc., appeals from a judgment upholding a jury verdict awarding damages to plaintiffs, and from the denial by the Court of certain post-trial motions in this Mississippi diversity wrongful death action. Appellant contends that the verdict was contrary to the weight of evidence, that the award was excessive, and that the Court erred in giving certain jury instructions.

Appellees, the widow and two daughters of the deceased, E. J. Anderson, brought this suit for actual and punitive damages growing out of his wrongful death, alleging gross negligence of defendant. On February 9, 1968, a short time before sunrise, Anderson was driving a station wagon east on Mississippi Highway 550 when his vehicle collided with appellant's tractor-trailer. Anderson was killed instantaneously. The only eyewitness to the accident was Warren Jones, who, moments prior to the collision, had driven the tractor-trailer across the east-west highway, blocking both lanes of traffic, while attempting to turn around. The rear wheels of the trailer were off the highway on the south shoulder of the road. The tractor was at an angle to the trailer facing almost due west and its headlights were shining in that direction. Trailer lights were not burning, but there was evidence that electric wires on the trailer had been severed at a point close to where the Anderson vehicle had hit and gone under the side of the trailer. Jones, the driver of the tractor, had been hauling a load of steel pipes and was proceeding west on the highway en route to a jobsite near Brookhaven, Mississippi. Having been misdirected as to the proper route, Jones was attempting to turn completely around by jackknifing the tractor and backing the trailer into a driveway on the south shoulder of the road. His rig was in this position when he noticed Anderson's station wagon approaching from the west. Jones blinked the four-way warning lights, sounded his air horn, then jumped from the tractor cab and attempted unsuccessfully to flag down the approaching vehicle. According to Jones, Anderson continued at the same speed and crashed into the side of the trailer. At the scene of the accident, the width of the highway, including the north and south shoulders, is approximately forty-one and a half feet. Appellant's tractor-trailer was sixty-one and a half feet long, exceeding by twenty feet the width of the highway and exceeding by six and a half feet the maximum allowable length under Mississippi law.¹

Defendant denied negligence and attempted to prove that negligence of Anderson in speeding, failing to avoid the accident, and in failing generally to use the care required of him was the sole cause of the accident. In the alternative, defendant pled that decedent Anderson was guilty of contributory negligence and that any award of damages should be proportionately reduced, as prescribed by Mississippi law. The jury returned a general verdict for plaintiffs in the sum of $162,500. We affirm.

We have examined the record and find that the evidence clearly preponderates in favor of appellees. We too are of the opinion, as was the District Court in denying appellant's various post-trial motions, that appellant's driver was grossly negligent in completely blocking a heavily traveled state highway, with a dangerously long rig, at a time in the early morning when visibility was limited. The District Court gave numerous instructions on negligence, comparative negligence and the duty of care required of Anderson under the circumstances, from which the jury could have and, as far as we know, may have determined that Anderson was contributorily negligent. Under Mississippi law, however, contributory negligence is no bar to recovery; instead, damages are reduced proportionately.² Consequently, even if the jury accepted appellant's version of the accident and found that Anderson was contributorily negligent in speeding or failing to slow down or to do anything to avoid the accident, there would be no inconsistency in the verdict because of the overwhelming evidence of negligence of Jones. The issues of negligence and contributory negligence are particularly susceptible of jury determination,³ and under the standards set by this Court in Boeing Company v. Shipman, 5 Cir., 1969, 411 F.2d 365, the Court was correct in requiring the jury to resolve these factual issues.⁴

Appellant contends that the Court committed error in granting instructions in behalf of appellees based on Mississippi Code Annotated § 8215 (1956). This section reads in pertinent part:

"(a) Upon any highway outside of a business or residence district no person shall stop, park, or leave standing any vehicle, whether attended or unattended, upon the paved or improved or main traveled part of the highway when it is practical to stop, park, or so leave such vehicle off such part of said highway, but in every event a clear and unobstructed width of at least twenty feet of such part of the highway opposite such standing vehicle shall be left for the free passage of other vehicles and a clear view of such stopped vehicle be available from a distance of two hundred feet in each direction upon such highway."

The Court paraphrased the statute and then instructed the jury on the application of the statute to the existing facts. Appellant argues that the Court's instruction was tantamount to a peremptory instruction for appellees. A reading of the charge convinces us otherwise. The jury was instructed concerning their duty to return a verdict for plaintiffs contingent upon three requisites being met: a finding that the vehicle was parked in a manner prohibited by the statute, plus a finding that such parking constituted negligence, plus a further finding that the negligence, if any, proximately caused or contributed to the collision. The instruction, allowing, as it did, the jury to make its own decision as to whether there was negligence, is vastly different from those instructions criticized by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in Teche Lines, Inc. v. Danforth, 195 Miss. 226, 12 So.2d 784 (1943), and Hankins v. Harvey, 248 Miss. 639, 160 So.2d 63 (1964), which required a finding of negligence upon a determination that the parking statute had been violated. Strict compliance with M.C.A. 8215 under all circumstances would, of course, lead to absurd results, as the Supreme Court of Mississippi has repeatedly held.⁵ The decisions understandably recognize the right of a motorist in traffic to momentarily stop on the highway without being in violation of the statute. Suffice it to say, however, that the decisions emphasize the need for common sense, practicality and reasonableness in the application and interpretation of the statute, taking into consideration the exigencies of traffic and such factors as the condition of the shoulders of the...