Calvetti v. Seipp
| Decision Date | 22 June 1967 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 40042 |
| Citation | 37 Ill.2d 596,227 N.E.2d 758 |
| Parties | Mildred CALVETTI, Appellee, v. Mary SEIPP, Appellant. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Roberts & Kepner, Springfield, for appellant.
Oehmke, Dunham, Boman & Leskera, East St. Louis (John W. Leskera, East St. Louis, of counsel), for appellee.
Mildred Calvetti brought action in the circuit court of St. Clair County against Mary Seipp to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile collision. Trial was before a jury. At the close of all the evidence plaintiff moved for a directed verdict. The motion was denied and the jury returned a verdict for defendant. Plaintiff thereupon made a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial on the issue of damages alone. This motion was also denied, the trial court entering judgment on the verdict for defendant. On plaintiff's appeal the Appellate Court for the Fifth District concluded that the defendant was negligent as a matter of law. The judgment of the circuit court was reversed and the cause was remanded for trial on the sole issue of damages. (70 Ill.App.2d 58, 216 N.E.2d 497.) We granted defendant's petition for leave to appeal.
The collision occurred about 9:30 P.M. on February 28, 1963. Plaintiff was a passenger in a car being driven by her son-in-law in a northerly direction on Route 159 near Collinsville. The defendant was driving her car in a southerly direction, accompanied by her husband and five children. It was snowing heavily, visibility was poor, the dividing line was not clear, and the road surface was slick. It had rained and sleeted earlier in the evening.
The essential facts are not in dispute. Defendant's car was proceeding down a slight slope at about 25 miles per hour. As it approached the plaintiff's vehicle coming from the opposite direction, it went into a skid. Defendant turned her wheel to the right, whereupon the rear end of her vehicle slipped to the left into the other lane and was struck by the car in which the plaintiff was riding. The latter auto was traveling at about the same speed as defendant's car but was entirely in its own lane when the accident happened. There is no question of contributory negligence.
Defendant insists that negligence is a question of fact to be decided by the jury, that it becomes a matter of law only when it can be said all reasonable minds would conclude the facts establish negligence on defendant's part, and that in determining this question the testimony most favorable to the defendant must be taken as true, together with all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom. This court in Pedrick v. Peoria and Eastern Railroad Co., Docket No. 39717, decided this term, exhaustively reviewed the authorities applicable to cases such as the present one, and it is unnecessary to re-cite them here. The rule as we conclude in the Pedrick case is that a verdict ought to be directed or judgment N.o.v. entered wherever the evidence, when viewed in its aspect most favorable to the opponent, so overwhelmingly favors the movant that no contrary verdict based on the evidence could ever stand.
The question with which we are confronted here is whether the contrary verdict, returned in the case at bar, can stand in the face of the evidence in this record, viewed in its aspect most favorable to the defendant. The evidence when so viewed shows that...
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...101 Ill.Dec. 867, 499 N.E.2d 455; see also Sughero v. Jewel Tea Co. (1967), 37 Ill.2d 240, 343, 226 N.E.2d 28; Calvetti v. Seipp (1967), 37 Ill.2d 596, 598-99, 227 N.E.2d 758.) In opposition to Antoinette's estate's motion, Larry asserted that a sudden emergency occurred when the brakes fai......
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... ... Sughero v. Jewel Tea Co. (1967), 37 Ill.2d 240, 226 N.E.2d 28; Calvetti v. Seipp (1967), 37 Ill.2d 596, 227 N.E.2d 758 ... Plaintiff's evidence demonstrated that he was in custody as an inmate in the ... ...
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