Conard v. Miller Motor Exp., Inc., 192

• Decision Date: 13 October 1965
• Docket Number: No. 192,192
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Thelma C. CONARD, Administratrix of the Estate of Robert Lee Conard, Deceased, v. MILLER MOTOR EXPRESS, INC.

Page 269

144 S.E.2d 269

265 N.C. 427

Thelma C. CONARD, Administratrix of the Estate of Robert Lee Conard, Deceased, v. MILLER MOTOR EXPRESS, INC.

No. 192.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Oct. 13, 1965.

Henry M. Whitesides, Gastonia, for plaintiff appellant.

Mullen, Holland & Harrell, by James Mullen, Gastonia, for defendant appellees.

HIGGINS, Justice.

This cause grew out of a rear-end motor vehicle collision in South Carolina. The substantive law of that State controls. The procedural law of North Carolina controls. Childress v. Johnson Motor Lines, 235 N.C. 522, 70 S.E.2d 558.

The plaintiff's counsel argues here that the evidence made out a case of actionable negligence under the South Carolina law in that it shows the defendant's agent, King, was operating its tractor-trailer unit on U. S. Highway 85 in South Carolina at a speed of 30-35 miles per hour at a place where the minimum speed for motor vehicles had been established at 40 miles per hour. The evidence is sufficient to disclose that the South Carolina Highway Authorities had posted notice of a 40-mile per hour speed limit at the place where the accident occurred. However, the statute, § 46-372, South Carolina Code, under which the Highway authorities posted the minimum, carries an exception which makes the minimum inapplicable under the circumstances disclosed on this occasion.

'No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law. (emphasis added) Whenever the Department determines on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation that slow speeds on any part of a State highway consistently impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, the Department may determine and declare a minimum speed limit below which no person shall drive a vehicle, except when necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law, when appropriate signs giving notice thereof are erected along the part of the highway for which a minimum speed limit is established.' (emphasis added)

The plaintiff's evidence discloses that the blow-out on one of the dual wheels of the defendant's unit occurred at a place where the shoulder space (on a fill) equaled the trailer width of about eight feet. King, the driver, testified he had insufficient room to take off a wheel and make repairs. One of the plaintiff's witnesses, a transportation expert,...