Crawford v. Halkovics

Decision Date11 August 1982
Docket NumberNo. 81-1903,81-1903
Citation438 N.E.2d 890,1 Ohio St.3d 184,1 OBR 213
Parties, 1 O.B.R. 213 CRAWFORD, Appellee, v. HALKOVICS, Appellant.
CourtOhio Supreme Court

Robert J. Sawyer, Cleveland, for appellee.

Cronquist, Smith, Marshall & Kagels and Philip J. Weaver, Jr., Cleveland, for appellant.

PER CURIAM.

A court may properly grant a motion for a directed verdict where, after construing the evidence most strongly in favor of the party against whom the motion is directed, it finds that upon any determinative issue reasonable minds could come to but one conclusion upon the evidence submitted and that conclusion is adverse to such party. Civ.R. 50(A)(4). If, however, there is substantial competent evidence to support the party against whom the motion is made, upon which evidence reasonable minds might reach different conclusions, the motion must be denied. Kellerman v. J. S. Durig Co. (1964), 176 Ohio St. 320, 199 N.E.2d 562 ; Hawkins v. Ivy (1977), 50 Ohio St.2d 114, 363 N.E.2d 367 ; Strother v. Hutchinson (1981), 67 Ohio St.2d 282, 423 N.E.2d 467 .

The Court of Appeals based its decision that the trial court erred in not granting the plaintiff a directed verdict at the close of the evidence on its finding that failure of the plaintiff to operate her vehicle with properly functioning brake lights, as required by statute, could not have been a proximate cause of the rear-end collision. It was the court's opinion, in light of the fact that the collision occurred in broad daylight with the Crawford automobile clearly discernible to the defendant, that "reasonable minds could only have concluded that * * * [the defendant's] negligence per se [in failing to comply with R.C. 4511.21, the assured clear distance statute] was the sole cause of the collision herein, regardless of whether or not * * * [the plaintiff's] brake lights were operative."

The automobile accident at issue in this case occurred before the effective date of R.C. 2315.19, the comparative negligence statute. At the time of the accident, a plaintiff found to have been contributorily negligent was barred from recovery where a direct and proximate causal relationship existed between the plaintiff's negligent act and the injury received. Bahm v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Rd. Co. (1966), 6 Ohio St.2d 192, 217 N.E.2d 217 . Even where a defendant was found to have violated a duty imposed by statute and been guilty of negligence per se, if contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff was established and shown to be a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury, there could be no recovery. Patton v. Pennsylvania Rd. Co. (1939), 136 Ohio St. 159, 24 N.E.2d 597 . Consistent with these principles this court expressly held in Transportation Corp. v. Lenox Trucking, Inc. (1968), 15 Ohio St.2d 1, 238 N.E.2d 539 , that even though a defendant was chargeable with negligence per se for a violation of the assured clear distance statute, contributory negligence shown to be a proximate cause of the injury would defeat the plaintiff's action. Contributory negligence has been defined as "any want of ordinary care on the part of the person injured, which combined and concurred with the defendant's negligence and contributed to the injury as a proximate cause thereof, and as an element without which the injury would not have occurred." Brinkmoeller v. Wilson (1975), 41 Ohio St.2d 223, 226, 325 N.E.2d 233 .

The evidence in this case, when construed in the defendant's favor, is sufficient to support a finding that the brake lights on the Crawford automobile were not operating immediately prior to the accident, that Crawford did not otherwise signal her intention to stop or suddenly decrease her speed, and that Crawford was thus in violation of R.C. 4513.071 and 4511.39 1 and negligent per se. We do not share the Court of Appeals' opinion that reasonable minds could not have found that Crawford's negligence per se was a proximate cause of the accident.

"Ordinarily, the issue of causation is for the determination of the jury and it is not for the court to substitute its reasoning for that of the jury in a field which belongs peculiarly to the latter." Baldridge v. Wright Gas Co. (1951), 154 Ohio St. 452, 96 N.E.2d 300 , paragraph three of the syllabus. See, also White v. Ohio Power Co. (1960), 171 Ohio St. 148, 168 N.E.2d 314 . In Prosser on Torts (4 Ed.), 237, Section 41, it is stated that the determination of whether one's conduct has caused an injury is a question of fact "upon which all the learning, literature and lore of the law are largely lost. It is a matter upon which any layman is quite as competent to sit in judgment as the most experienced court. For that reason, in the ordinary case, it is peculiarly a question for the jury."

This court has not decided a case in which the absence of brake lights on the plaintiff's vehicle was contended to have been contributory negligence and a proximate cause of a rear-end collision. 2 Other courts, however, have passed on the question, and many of those courts have held that the issue as to whether a failure of brake lights substantially contributed to a rear-end collision was an issue properly resolved by the jury. In Correll v. Werner (1981), 293 Pa.Super. 88, 437 A.2d 1004, for example, the defendant's automobile struck the rear of the plaintiff's automobile on a two-lane highway at approximately 4:00 p. m. on a Friday afternoon. The defendant testified that he had been driving at 30 to 35 miles per hour when he first noticed the plaintiff's automobile about 200 feet ahead, but could not tell whether the car was stationary or moving. The defendant next noticed the car when he was one or two car lengths behind it, but could not stop his car in time to avoid the collision. The defendant testified that he never saw brake lights, turn signals or hand signals. Police testimony indicated that the plaintiff had been stopped two days prior to the accident for defective brake lights and turn signals, and that those lights were inoperable after the accident. The same policeman witnessed the accident, and testified that he never saw brake lights or turn signals on plaintiff's car before the accident. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that on these facts, the issue whether the plaintiff's lack of brake lights, turn signals or hand signals was a proximate cause of the rear-end collision was for the jury, and that the issue of contributory negligence should have been submitted to the jury. A directed verdict for the plaintiffs, the driver and passengers in the preceding vehicle, was reversed. See, also, Schrader v. George (1931), 12 Ohio Law Abs. 49; McLaughlin v. Campbell (1930), 9 Ohio Law Abs. 240; McMahon v. Young (1971), 442 Pa. 484, 276 A.2d 534; Brown v. Wright (1975), 216 Va. 10, 216 S.E.2d 13; Cox v. Miller (Ala.1978), 361 So.2d 1044; Tafoya v. Whitson (1971), 83 N.M. 23, 487 P.2d 1093.

Other courts have held that the absence of brake lights on a preceding vehicle is not a causative factor of a rear-end collision. However, in such cases the particular factual circumstances differ from those of the case before us, generally in that the evidence led to only one reasonable conclusion: that the following driver would not have seen or heeded a brake light or required signal of intention had it been given. 3

In the case at bar, Halkovics testified that her vision was focused straight ahead as she proceeded through the intersection at approximately 10 miles per hour and that she saw no brake lights or other indication that the Crawford automobile was coming to a second stop immediately past the intersection at a point where a preceding driver could be expected to accelerate. She testified that she was completely alert and paying attention to her driving immediately prior to the accident. In light of this testimony, and the other evidence presented we believe that reasonable minds could have concluded that the presence of brake lights on plaintiff's car might have alerted Halkovics to the slowing of the Crawford car enabling her to have stopped in time to avoid the collision. For this reason the trial court correctly refused to grant the plaintiff a directed verdict, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed.

Judgment reversed.

WILLIAM B. BROWN, SWEENEY, HOLMES and KRUPANSKY, JJ., concur.

FRANK D. CELEBREZZE, C. J., and LOCHER and CLIFFORD F. BROWN, JJ., dissent.

FRANK D. CELEBREZZE, Chief Justice, dissenting.

Although I acknowledge the correctness of the proposition that "[e]ven though a defendant is chargeable with negligence per se for a violation of the assured-clear-distance-ahead statute, the defense of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff is not thereby precluded * * *," Transportation Corp. v. Lenox Trucking Co., Inc. (1968), 15 Ohio St.2d 1, 238 N.E.2d 539 , paragraph two of the syllabus, I am constrained to point out that, in order to bar the plaintiff's recovery, plaintiff's contributory negligence must be a proximate cause of the injuries. Since my reading of the record compels me to conclude that any alleged contributory negligence of the plaintiff was not a proximate cause of the collision, I must respectfully dissent.

In addressing the assured-clear-distance-ahead rule, this court recently ruled in Lewis v. Certified Oil Co. (1981), 67 Ohio St.2d 277, 279, 423 N.E.2d 464 :

"The seminal case on the assured-clear-distance-ahead rule is McFadden v. Elmer C. Breuer Transportation Co. (1952), 156 Ohio St. 430, 103 N.E.2d 385 , in which this court ruled that a driver has a duty to operate his automobile in a sufficiently careful manner so that the vehicle can be brought to a stop without colliding with a reasonably discernible object located ahead of him in his lane of travel.

"In deciding this case, we are mindful of the observation that:

" 'In most instances the question whether the object with which the collision occurs is reasonably discernible gives little...

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