Crader v. Jamison, s. 34867

• Decision Date: 29 May 1973
• Docket Number: Nos. 34867,34868,s. 34867
• Citation: 496 S.W.2d 263
• Parties: Pauline CRADER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Rose JAMISON, Defendant-Respondent. SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Tyrone CRADER, Defendant-Appellant. . Louis District
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 263

496 S.W.2d 263

Pauline CRADER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Rose JAMISON, Defendant-Respondent.

SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Tyrone CRADER, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 34867, 34868.

Missouri Court of Appeals, St. Louis District.

May 29, 1973.

Val Terschluse, Clayton, for appellants.

Wuestling & James, William F. James, St. Louis, for respondents.

McMILLIAN, Judge.

These two cases are actions arising out of an intersectional vehicular collision. On February 19, 1970, plaintiff-appellant Pauline Crader, filed suit in the Magistrate Court of the County of St. Louis seeking to recover damages allegedly caused by Rose Jamison the driver and joint owner of a vehicle involved in a collision with an automobile owned by Pauline Crader and driven by her son Tyrone. On May 20, 1970, plaintiff-respondent Safeco Insurance Company, a corporation, and an assignee and subrogee of Richard Jamison, the joint owner along with Rose Jamison of the vehicle involved in the above collision, filed suit in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County against Tyrone Crader seeking damages in the sum of $363.59 for damages to Rose and Richard Jamison's automobile. The case of Pauline Crader v. Rose and Richard Jamison was tried in Magistrate Court on August 25, 1970. The court found for the plaintiff and entered judgment in the sum of $489.06 on August 27, 1970. Defendant-respondent Rose Jamison filed a motion to consolidate their causes in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County and that motion was granted on October 30, 1970. The consolidated action was tried by the court on April 24, 1972. On April 25, 1972, the court entered judgment for plaintiff in the case of Safeco Insurance Co. v. Tyrone Crader, and on April 27, 1972 the court entered judgment for the defendant in the case of Pauline Crader v. Rose Jamison. Both cases have also been consolidated on appeal since both involve common questions of fact and law. We affirm.

The accident out of which these actions arose occurred on December 4, 1969, at the intersection of Bayless Avenue and Union Road in St. Louis County. Bayless Avenue is a four-lane street running east and west. Union Road is also a four-lane street that extends north and south. The intersection of Bayless and Union is usually controlled by four stop signs. There is uncontroverted testimony in the record that on the day of the accident the stop sign controlling westbound traffic on Bayless Road was not in place and was, in fact, lying by the side of the road. The record indicates that the sign was removed by parties unknown although there was evidence to the effect that road repair and construction had been taking place at that corner.

Defendant-appellant Tyrone Crader was travelling westbound on Bayless Avenue at a speed of 20 or 25 m.p.h. and was slowing down as he approached the intersection of Bayless and Union. Pauline Crader had given her son Tyrone permission to use her car to attend a basketball game at Bayless High School with a date. Tyrone Crader was totally unfamiliar with the area and was proceeding at a slow rate of speed while attempting to determine the location of the high school. Rose Jamison was driving southbound on Union Road and stopped at the stop sign at the intersection of Bayless and Union. Mrs. Jamison was well-acquainted with the intersection in question since the intersection was only three or four blocks from her home and she had occasion to drive through the intersection daily on her way to work. Mrs. Jamison observed the Crader vehicle, approximately two car lengths from the intersection, approaching from her left. She believed that the Crader vehicle was going to stop at the stop sign and based on this assumption Rose Jamison proceeded to go into the intersection. When Mrs. Jamison was four to five feet into the intersection she realized that the Crader vehicle was not going to stop. Mrs. Jamison then stopped in the intersection and the Crader vehicle struck the left front of the car.

Appellant assigns as error the failure of the trial court: (1) to find that Rose Jamison was negligent as a matter of law in the case of Safeco Insurance Co. v. Tyrone Crader and (2) to find that under the law of bailment, Pauline Crader was entitled to judgment for her damages once it had been determined that Rose Jamison was negligent, regardless of the negligence, if any, of Tyrone Crader in the case of Pauline Crader v. Rose Jamison.

It is appellant's contention that, as to their first grounds for appeal, Rose Jamision, by her own admission, was negligent as a matter of law in pulling into the path of the oncoming Crader automobile from a stopped position when the Crader automobile was only two car lengths from the intersection and travelling at a speed of 20 to 25 m.p.h. In dealing with a similar factual situation in the case of Jones v. Fritz, 353 S.W.2d 393 (Mo.App.1962) the Missouri Court of Appeals, Springfield, held that where the plaintiff entered an intersection knowing that the intersection was controlled by fourway stop signs and where the plaintiff assumed that the defendant's approaching vehicle would stop at the traffic control signal, and the defendant didn't stop '. . . the issue of plaintiff's contributory negligence was for the jury unless, from all of the evidence and the inferences fairly deducible therefrom, when viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the only reasonable conclusion was that plaintiff was guilty of negligence proximately causing her injury . . .' In a recent case in point, the Missouri Supreme Court, in Price v. Bangert Brothers Road Builders, Inc., 490 S.W.2d 53, 57 (Mo.1973) held that where the defendant, who was travelling on a through street, saw the plaintiff's automobile approaching the intersection but did not slow, stop or sound a warning, assuming that the plaintiff would stop at the stop sign (which stop sign had been removed by the co-defendant's construction crew), '. . . Under these circumstances, the negligence of Mrs. Rautert (the defendant) was for the jury . . .' In the instant case the question of Mrs. Jamison's negligence, if any, was for the court. The court found for ...