Dent v. Luckett
| Decision Date | 11 December 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 42018,42018 |
| Citation | 135 So.2d 840,242 Miss. 559 |
| Parties | J. K. DENT, Sr. and Arthur Johnson. v. Danny LUCKETT. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Lott & Sanders, Greenwood, Campbell & Campbell, Yazoo City, for appellants.
John S. Holmes, Henry & Barbour, Yazoo City, for appellee.
The appellants rely for a reversal of this case on ten assignments of error but the grounds of each assignment of error will be more readily understood by a statement of what the case is about.
On November 2, 1959, the plaintiff, Danny Luckett, a young man 23 years of age, was living on his father's farm seven or eight miles southwest of Yazoo City, Mississippi, and was then employed by the Mississippi Chemical Corporation at a salary of $454.46 per month or approximately $5,500.00 per year. On the night of the accident, the plaintiff was working the mid-night shift from twelve o'clock at night until eight in the morning. The morning of the accident the plaintiff had gotten off from work at eight a. m., had gone home, eaten his breakfast and had spent the day fishing with a friend. At approximately six p. m. on November 2, 1959, when it was then good dark, he was returning to his home in his 1951 Ford automobile to eat supper and sleep until time to go to work that night.
While en route home, the plaintiff was traveling in a westerly direction on a graveled country road when he met a Chevrolet pickup truck which was pulling a cotton trailer on which there was loaded three bales of loose seed cotton. The trailer immediately behind the pickup truck was 7 feet 11 7/8 inches in width or approximately 8 feet wide and 14 feet long. The Chevrolet pickup truck belonged to the appellant, J. K. Dent, Sr., and was being driven by his employee, Arthur Johnson, in carrying these three bales of cotton in an easterly direction to a gin at Yazoo City, Mississippi.
The Chevrolet pickup truck had good headlights on the front thereof and these lights were burning at the time of the accident hereinafter mentioned. However, the testimony is in conflict as to whether or not there were any reflectors of other lighting devices on either the front or sides of the trailer itself, the driver, Arthur Johnson, having testified at the trial that there were reflectors on the trailer, and Mr. Dent testified that it was his best recollection that there were but he could not swear to this fact, and the plaintiff, Danny Luckett, having testified that he did not see any reflectors or other lighting devices on the trailer as the pickup truck and trailer approached him on the highway; that all he saw was the burning headlights on the front of the Chevrolet pickup truck and that from this fact he assumed that he was meeting an ordinary truck or automobile. The theory of the plaintiff was of course that if there had been reflectors or other lighting devices on the front or on the sides of the trailer or truck he would have seen them.
Section 8229-02, Sub-Sec. (d), requires that
Section 8229-07, Sub-Sec. (be, provides that 'Every reflector shall be of such size and characteristics as to be readily visible at night from all distances within five hundred (500) feet to fifty (50) feet from the motor vehicle when directly in front of a normal headlight beam.'
To either send or drive a heavily loaded and unlighted trailer down the highway after dark without any reflectors or other lighting devices thereon where such trailer is approximately eight feet in width and towed by a pickup truck only 6 feet 4 inches wide, and on a well-traveled graveled country road from 21 feet to 23 feet in width would, in our opinion, amount to common law negligence.
The plaintiff did not choose to submit the case to the jury under instructions based on these statutes but rather upon the theory that the defendants were guilty of negligence in driving this pickup truck and trailer on a graveled country road from 21 feet to 23 feet in width after dark and meeting and passing other traffic on the highway without any reflectors or other lighting devices to inform the oncoming motorists that the pickup truck was pulling an unlighted trailer of sufficient width to carry three bales of loose seed cotton.
It was the theory and contention of the plaintiff, Danny Luckett, that although he was partly on his wrong side of the road when he first saw the Chevrolet pickup truck which was pulling the trailer as aforesaid approximately five hundred feet ahead of him, he nevertheless immediately got back on his side of the road and then proceeded toward the oncoming pickup truck and trailer, and that he passed the Chevrolet pickup truck without incident and that then his Ford automobile ran under the protruding side of the trailer after passing the pickup truck and that this trailer turned back the windshield of his Ford automobile and badly crushed him therein and severly injured and damaged him in the manner to be hereinafter stated.
On the other hand, the defendant, Arthur Johnson, who was driving the Chevrolet pickup truck to which the loaded cotton trailer was attached, testified he remained on the south or his right side of the road at all times when approaching the Ford automobile of the plaintiff; that he brought his truck and trailer to a stop within three feet after the accident and that his pickup came to rest near the ditch on the right or south side of the road and that the trailer came to rest partly in the ditch to the right or south side of the road; and the said Arthur Johnson therefore contended that the plaintiff was on the wrong side of the road when the accident occurred, just as the plaintiff contended that he, Arthur Johnson, was on the wrong side of the road at the time of the accident. Thus it well be seen that the case was one peculiarly for the determination of a jury.
It was conceded at the trial by the driver of each vehicle that they both dimmed their lights when meeting each other and it was contended by the appellee, Danny Luckett, that when his automobile was brought to rest it was within 1 1/2 feet of the ditch on its side of the road. The proof shows that the automobile turned completely around and was headed back in the direction from which it came when the accident was over. The appellants contend that it was wholly an impossibility for the plaintiff's automobile to have turned completely around without getting in the ditch on one side or the other of the graveled road. But we think that this was a matter for the consideration of the jury based upon their own experience and observation.
The jury evidently didn't accept at full value the testimony of the drivers of either of the automobiles and believed that they both could not have been on the same side of the road and have passed each other. In other words the jury had the right to believe, and evidently did believe, that each of the vehicles was partially on its wrong side of the road.
The appellants requested and obtained an instruction on contributory negligence and we are not warranted in assuming that the jury did not give full consideration to this instruction by failing to reduce the damages according to any contributory negligence of the plaintiff, if the jury believed that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence.
On the other hand if the jury believed that the plaintiff was on his side of the road at the time of the accident, and that the accident was without fault on his part, then it was not the duty of the jury to reduce the damages to any extent that had been suffered by the plaintiff.
Again on the question of whether or not there were reflectors or other lighting devices on the trailer, it should be observed that the endgate on the front of the trailer was knocked off in the collision and was covered up by the loose cotton that spilled out the front of the trailer. And although there were many photographs taken at the instance of the defendants at the scene of the accident on the next day after the accident, it may have been significant to the jury that the endgate which did not show any reflectors on the upturned portion thereof was not turned over and a picture or pictures made of the side thereof which had been resting on the graveled road. If this had been done, it could have thereby been clearly ascertained whether or not there were any reflectors on either side of this endgate, and...
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King v. State, 43225
...which he thought was wrong in the plat. The cross-examination of defendant with reference to the map was proper. See Dent v. Luckett, 242 Miss. 559, 135 So.2d 840 (1961). The State of Mississippi offered testimony during the trial to show the physical condition of deceased after the alleged......