Atherton v. Crandlemire

• Decision Date: 12 July 1943
• Citation: 33 A.2d 303
• Parties: ATHERTON v. CRANDLEMIRE et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

33 A.2d 303

ATHERTON

v.CRANDLEMIRE et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 12, 1943.

Motion for New Trial from Superior Court, Penobscot County.

Action by Ernest A. Atherton against Fayette Crandlemire and others for personal injuries and property damages sustained in automobile collision. Plaintiff recovered a verdict of $800 against two defendants as joint tort feasors. On motion by defendant Crandlemire alone for new trial.

Motion overruled.

Before STURGIS, C. J., and THAXTER, HUDSON, MANSER, MURCHIE, and CHAPMAN, JJ.

Edward Stern and Atherton & Atherton, all of Bangor, for plaintiff.

Fellows & Fellows, of Bangor, for defendants.

MURCHIE, Justice.

In the Trial Court the plaintiff herein recovered a verdict against two defendants as joint tort feasors, wherein damages were assessed at the sum of $800. It is entirely clear under the law in this State that each wrongdoer is liable for the whole amount of damage resulting from separate negligent acts which operate together to cause damage to another, although the party injured can have but one satisfaction, Stuart v. Chapman, 104 Me. 17, 70 A. 1069.

The case comes to this Court on a general motion filed by the defendant Crandlemire alone, and although no exception was noted in connection with the action, reliance in argument is based not only upon the usual allegations of such a motion, but on the fact that the verdict returned by the jury carried the statement “$400.00 each” immediately following the assessment of the damage.

Plaintiff's damage resulted directly from a collision between a motor vehicle owned and operated by him and one owned and operated by the defendant Crandlemire approaching each other to meet and pass upon a highway, but the act of the defendant Gagnon in driving a motor vehicle from a private driveway into the path of the plaintiff, which forced the latter to sheer his car to the left and partly across the center line of the road he was traveling where the collision with the defendant Crandlemire occurred, must have been found by the jury to be a part of the proximate cause of the accident.

The verdict cannot be set aside on the general motion, either on the issue of liability or on the basis that the damages assessed are excessive. It is established law that when the operator of a motor vehicle comes into collision with another on the left of the middle of the traveled portion of the highway, contrary to the express provisions of R.S.1930, Chap. 29, § 2, his position constitutes evidence of negligence which, unexplained, will preclude him from recovery for any damage suffered, Bragdon v. Kellogg, 118 Me. 42, 105 A. 433, 6 A.L.R. 669. The evidence presented to the jury, so far as eye-witnesses to the accident are concerned, came exclusively from the parties and from the wife of the defendant Crandlemire, who was riding with him at the time of the accident. That evidence presents very sharply conflicting issues of fact as to the speed of the Crandlemire car, the space available for him to have turned that car farther to his right hand side of the road, and the exact place of the collision with reference to the vehicle of the defendant Gagnon, which did not come into contact with either of the other cars. It should perhaps be noted that the defendant Gagnon in his testimony made repeated reference to a curve or curves in the highway and stated that the plaintiff Atherton was trying to overtake and pass him on a curve when the impact occurred, but all other eye-witnesses to the accident, and the State Highway Police officer who investigated it, are in agreement that the road was straight and that all the drivers had a clear view for several hundred feet each way from the place where the collision occurred. No...