Bellere v. Madsen
| Decision Date | 16 September 1959 |
| Citation | 114 So.2d 619,80 A.L.R.2d 1 |
| Parties | Edward J. BELLERE et al., Appellants, v. Einar MADSEN, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Fleming, O'Bryan & Fleming and Harrison Griffin, Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.
McCune, Hiaasen, Kelly & Crum and James J. Linus, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a verdict and judgment in favor of defendant-appellee entered in a suit filed by plaintiffs, father and son, to recover their respective damages for injuries sustained when the Ford truck driven by the father, in which the son was a passenger, was struck from the rear by an automobile driven by the defendant. Jurisdiction of the appeal attached prior to July 1, 1957, the effective date of Revised Article V of the Florida Constitution, F.S.A.
Both parties were proceeding west on a two-lane road. Traffic was heavy in the west-bound lane but light in the east-bound lane. The road was wet and slippery. Because of the long line of traffic in the traffic lane in which they were travelling, the plaintiffs had stopped, waited, and started up two or three times as they approached the traffic light for which they were stopped at the time defendant ran into the rear of their truck. The force of the collision caused plaintiffs' heads to come into contact with and shatter the rear window of the truck. Plaintiffs heard no warning such as screeching of tires or sounding of a horn. The defendant gave the following explanation for running into the plaintiffs:
'* * * it had been raining during the day and the road was wet and slippery and there was a long line of cars and someone got ahead of me and stopped in front, got ahead of me a little bit and I tried to catch up, and down close to U. S. No. 1 I had to stop for a light, and in the meantime when I tried to catch up I saw a lady walking on the street, a girl I think it was, and I was kind of afraid to get too close to her, and so in a very short time I took my attention away from the road to watch her, before I knew it something was happening, I slammed on my brakes and the car skidded into it and hit it.'
In answer to the question, 'Where was the girl with reference to the pavement, was she off the pavement?' the defendant replied:
It was shown that the girl was walking in an easterly direction on the defendant's right, or north, side of the road, facing the plaintiffs and the defendant. When the plaintiffs passed her she was walking well off the road. One of the plaintiffs testified that, after the accident, the defendant's explanation was that
Based solely upon the foregoing, testimony, the trial judge at the defendant's request and over the objection of plaintiffs gave to the jury an instruction on the theory of 'sudden emergency', the charge being that approved by this court in Klepper v. Breslin, Fla.1955, 83 So.2d 587. As noted, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant. The plaintiffs contend here that the giving of the charge on sudden emergency was reversible error in the absence of any evidence to support such charge, that the verdict is contrary to the manifest weight and probative force of the evidence, and that it was therefore error to...
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...ago declared motor vehicles to be "dangerous instrumentalities," see Meister v. Fisher, 462 So.2d 1071, 1071 (Fla.1984); Bellere v. Madsen, 114 So.2d 619, 621 (Fla.1959); Nelson v. Ziegler, 89 So.2d 780, 783 (Fla.1956), and, in any event, it cannot reasonably be questioned that the use of a......
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