Blanchard v. Lawson
| Decision Date | 25 April 1947 |
| Docket Number | 32135. |
| Citation | 27 N.W.2d 217,148 Neb. 299 |
| Parties | BLANCHARD v. LAWSON. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. A judgment will not ordinarily be reversed for refusing to give tendered instructions where other instructions given by the court fairly and correctly covered the issues involved in the tendered instructions.
2. The inadvertent substitution of one word for another in an instruction is at most harmless error, when it is clear from the instruction itself or from the record and other instructions given that the jury could not have been confused or misled thereby.
3. Instructions should be considered together in order that they may be properly understood, and when, as an entire charge they properly submit the issues to the jury, the verdict will not be set aside for harmless error in one of them.
4. Where the giving of an instruction is assigned as error but there is no discussion of the assignment in the briefs and no error is readily apparent on the face of the instruction, the assignment will not be further reviewed.
5. If an examination of all the instructions given by the trial court discloses that they fairly and correctly state the law applicable under the evidence, error cannot be predicated thereon.
6. Where there is no prejudicial error found in the record and the verdict of a jury has sufficient competent evidence to support it, the judgment will be affirmed.
McKillip Barth & Blevens, of Seward, for appellant.
Chambers & Holland, of Lincoln, for appellee.
Heard before SIMMONS, C. J., and PAINE, CARTER MESSMORE, YEAGER, CHAPPELL, and WENKE, JJ.
Plaintiff sought recovery for damages to his car by reason of its collision with a car driven by defendant at an intersection of county roads. The jury awarded defendant a verdict, upon which judgment was entered. Plaintiff's motion for new trial was overruled, and he appealed. His twelve assignments of error may be summarized as contending that the trial court erroneously submitted the case to the jury by the refusal and the giving of certain instructions. We conclude that his contentions cannot be sustained.
The following facts are undisputed. Plaintiff was driving from the north toward the south on a graveled county road approximately 25 feet wide, which gradually sloped upward to an intersection with a county dirt road approximately 20 feet wide, upon which defendant was driving from the west toward the east. The view of both drivers as they approached the intersection was obstructed by a high bank and plum thicket. Both drivers were familiar with the highways and well knew that their view was thus obstructed as they approached and entered the intersection. The front end of plaintiff's car struck the left side of defendant's car, a two-door sedan, at about the left door, crushing it inward, and pushing defendant's car eight or nine feet toward the south. Thereafter, defendant's car stopped with its front wheels in the south ditch of the east and west road at a point near the southeast corner of the intersection. The radiator of plaintiff's car was bent back down on the engine toward the driver. After the accident, plaintiff's car stood facing east with its left wheels near the center of the east and west road, and its front near the center of the north and south road. A trailer loaded with hogs and attached to plaintiff's car jacknifed around headed west against his car.
Other witnesses testified at the trial, but the evidence of plaintiff and defendant is primarily pertinent to decision and, except as above stated, was generally speaking in conflict.
Plaintiff testified in substance that he approached and entered the intersection at about 20 miles an hour, at which speed he could not have stopped in less than 35 feet. He says that he looked to the right, where observation was obstructed until in the intersection, and when at a point 8 or 9 feet therein, he saw defendant coming toward him on the wrong side of the road, at 40 miles an hour, without looking right or left. Thereupon, plaintiff applied his brakes, and turned his car left, but it was too late. There being nothing else to do, he shut his eyes, let her go, and defendant's car sideswiped him. Plaintiff also testified that defendant was just entering or ready to enter the intersection when he first saw him, and that thereafter defendant traveled 35 or 40 feet, while plaintiff traveled 12 or 15 feet before the collision.
Defendant testified in substance that as he approached the intersection on his right side of the highway, he slowed down, shifted into low, looked north at a point where he could see 15 or 20 feet back, and seeing nothing, started across at about 15 miles an hour. When he got almost to the center of the intersection, he looked again and saw plaintiff coming toward him, but could not estimate his speed. Defendant testified that he then tried to get away, by stepping on the gas, but could not. The front of plaintiff's car struck his car on the left side at or about the door or back of it, when his car was in the southeast quarter of the intersection, pushing it eight or nine feet south, where it stopped of its own accord in the ditch at the southeast corner of the east and west road.
Plaintiff first argues that the trial court erroneously refused to give his requested instructions No. 1 and 2, which prescribed generally the duty of drivers to have and maintain a lookout for other traffic when approaching and crossing an intersection of highways. In that connection, it was pleaded by plaintiff in his petition that defendan...
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