Bond v. Forthuber

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Before MARBURY; MARKELL
• Citation: Bond v. Forthuber, 198 Md. 476, 84 A.2d 886 (Md. 1951)
• Decision Date: 05 December 1951
• Docket Number: No. 28,28
• Parties: BOND v. FORTHUBER.

Page 476

198 Md. 476

84 A.2d 886

BOND v. FORTHUBER.

No. 28.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 5, 1951.

Sigmund Levin, Baltimore (Paul Berman and Theodore B. Berman, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Max Sokol, Baltimore (Leon H. A. Pierson, Emanuel H. Horn, Deeley K. Nice and Dickerson, Nice & Sokol, all of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

MARKELL, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment for defendant in a personal injury negligence case. Plaintiff, while crossing on foot Harford Road near Glendale Avenue, was struck by an automobile owned and operated by defendant.

Harford Road actually runs northeast and southwest. In the record directions are (and in this opinion will be) referred to as if Harford Road ran north and south and perpendicular streets east and west.

Glendale Avenue runs both east and west from Harford Road, but not in continuous straight lines. West of Harford Road it is perpendicular and is thirty feet wide, from curb to curb, with sidewalks ten feet wide on the north side, nine feet four inches on the south. East of Harford Road it runs slightly north of perpendicular, and is twenty-four feet wide, with sidewalks apparently nine feet eight inches wide. Immediately east of Harford Road the north curb of Glendale Avenue is slightly north of a straight prolongation of the south building line of Glendale Avenue west of Harford Road. Harford Road is sixty-eight feet five inches wide, twenty-two feet nine inches from the north curb, twenty-two feet eleven inches from the south, to double street car tracks, twelve feet between the north and south bound tracks, and five feet four and one-half inches between the two rails of each.

'181. (Pedestrians' Right-of-Way at Crosswalks.) (a) All pedestrians shall have the right-of-way at street crossing in the towns and cities of this State, except where traffic is controlled at such crossings by traffic officers, or traffic control devices. Between street crossings in such towns and cities, vehicles shall have the right-of-way.' Code, 1947 Supp.Art. 66 1/2, sec. 181(a). There is no statutory definition of 'street crossing' other than the definition of 'crosswalk', 'Any portion of a roadway distinctly indicated for pedestrian crossing by lines or other marking on the surface or that portion of a roadway ordinarily included within the prolongation or connection of the lateral lines of sidewalks at intersections.' Art. 66 1/2, sec. 2(a), (9). There is a crosswalk, ten feet wide, marked by the usual lines painted white on the roadway, almost perpendicular to Harford Road, from points on the west side near the south building line and the south curb line of Glendale Avenue to points on the east side near the north curb line and north of the north building line of Glendale Avenue. Thus the only 'marked' crosswalk runs from the northeast to the southwest corner, across the lines of through traffic in both directions on both Harford Road and Glendale Avenue.

Defendant contends that this 'marked' crosswalk was the only crosswalk or 'street crossing' at Harford Road and Glendale Avenue and that the marking of this crosswalk excluded the existence of any 'unmarked' crosswalk. Plaintiff contends that this 'marked' crosswalk was only an additional crosswalk and that the marking of it did not put an end to 'unmarked' crosswalks at 'that portion of [the] roadway ordinarily included within the prolongation or connection of the lateral lines of sidewalks at intersections', especially since the 'marked' crosswalk does not permit crossing either street without crossing both. (Bracketed numbers supplied.) Plaintiff apparently assumes that the statute, as applied to such an irregular crossing, may be construed as limiting the 'unmarked' crosswalks to the 'prolongation', excluding the 'connection', of sidewalk lines, thus recognizing two, not four, 'unmarked' crossings of Harford Road. The trial judge did not adopt either plaintiff's or defendant's construction of the statute, but left to the jury, as a question of fact, the existence of an 'unmarked' crosswalk within the prolongation of the north sidewalk lines of Glendale Avenue west of Harford Road. Plaintiff contends that in this respect the charge was erroneous, in effect left a question of law to the jury, and was prejudicial to plaintiff. Defendant moved for a directed verdict; his motion was denied. The verdict was for defendant. The view we take of the facts makes it unnecessary to pass upon the opposing contentions as to construction of the statute with repect to 'unmarked' crosswalks. For present purposes we may assume that there was an 'unmarked' crossway within the prolongation of the north sidewalk lines of Glendale Avenue.

As to the happening of the accident plaintiff and defendant were the only witnesses. If plaintiff's own testimony, together with any of defendant's testimony, or legitimate inferences therefrom, favorable to plaintiff, is legally insufficient to show that negligence of defendant was a proximate cause of the accident, or affirmatively shows that negligence of plaintiff directly caused or contributed to the accident, then defendant's motion for a directed verdict should have been granted, an the jury's verdict was correct, whether correctly arrived at or not. Goldman v. Johnson Motor Lines, 192 Md. 24, 35, 93 A.2d 622. The accident occurred in daylight, about 5:15 p. m. on October 12, 1949. Harford Road is a boulevard highway. Defendant had been driving his Ford station wagon on Glendale Avenue, east to Harford Road. He testified that, after stopping at Harford Road for traffic to pass, he entered Harford Road, to the right of the centre of Glendale Avenue, and turned north up Harford Road at the easternmost rail of the northbound track, and 'had proceeded possibly thirty or forty feet' when he first saw plaintiff about six feet north (and ten feet east) of him, coming toward him in a southwesterly [apparently westsouthwesterly] direction, immediately applied his brakes and came to a stop within the length of his car, but not before plaintiff's left knew collided with his right front bumper. The knee was later found to have been broken.

Plaintiff had driven his car north on Harford Road and had parked it on the east side, north of the northeast corner of Glendale Avenue. He testified that: He intended to go to the Food Fair on the southwest corner, but first to cross Harford Road to the northwest corner [where the Glendale Motors building is]. His car was parked 'just past [north of] Glendale Avenue'. He got out of his car, on the left side, walked 'about five or six or maybe seven feet' north 'to approximately opposite the sidewalk * * * on the northwest corner of Glendale Avenue', and waited several minutes for the traffic to clear. His 'was the last [southernmost] car parked north of Glendale Avenue. The rear of his car 'was across the sidewalk of Glendale Avenue'. [On cross-examination], the rear of his car was about five feet north of the 'marked' crossway at the northeast corner of Glendale Avenue; 'the center of my automobile was about in the center of Glendale Avenue, coming from the west;' the left front door of his car was about ten feet north of the 'marked' crossway; h...