Foley v. Hudson, 53186
| Decision Date | 09 September 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 53186,No. 2,53186,2 |
| Citation | 432 S.W.2d 205 |
| Parties | Mary C. FOLEY, Respondent, v. Dwain Edwin HUDSON, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Max W. Foust and Duke W. Ponick, Jr., Of Foust, Moudy & Jacobson, Kansas City, for respondent.
Amos Wight, Nevada, William H. Sanders, Dean F. Arnold, David C. Trowbridge, Kansas City, for appellant; Blackwell, Sanders, Matheny, Weary & Lombardi, Kansas City, of counsel.
Plaintiff brought action for wrongful death of her husband and recovered a verdict for $25,000. Defendant appeals. We affirm.
Defendant's primary contention on appeal is that his motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained. Accordingly, it is necessary for us to review the evidence, which we consider from the standpoint most favorable to plaintiff.
Defendant, on the night of March 4, 1964, was driving his straight truck with tandem 'pup' trailer north on U.S. Highway 71. It was a nasty, snowy night and freezing was occurring. The highway was covered with slush and in the vicinity of the accident was icy.
Defendant approached a hill on which there were several slow-moving trucks ahead of him. He attempted to stop but when he applied his brakes his truck and trailer jackknifed. The trailer broke loose and went into the east ditch with one end extending out on the highway. His truck spun around and came to a stop headed south but still in the northbound lane.
Defendant sent his helper to the back of the truck to turn off valves which had supplied air to the trailer brakes. When the helper got back in the truck defendant then drove from the northbound lane to the southbound lane (west half) and then headed south. He testified that there was a dangerous situation and he wanted to get out of there. When defendant started to pull across to the west half of the highway he saw lights of a truck approaching from the north in the southbound lane. He estimated that these lights (which were on a truck driven by Dan Short) were 50 to 75 feet away.
At that time there were three tractor-trailer units headed south on Highway 71. The first was driven by Dan Short, the second by Dale Miller, and the third by the deceased Foley. Each was approximately 48 feet long and weighed about 58,000 pounds with its load. They had been traveling about 40 miles per hour as they approached the hill on which this collision occurred. Miller was traveling 200 feet or so back of Short, and Foley was probably 400 feet back of Miller.
As these tractor-trailers approached from the north, they went up a gradual hill to its crest and then started downhill on the slope where defendant's truck had turned around and had stopped, headed south, in the northbound lane.
When Short reached the crest of the hill he was traveling about 20 miles per hour. He first observed the headlights of a car facing north which he placed on the east shoulder. Those headlights bothered him and at first he did not see anything else ahead of him.
When Short got even with this car, he saw a dark object on the highway ahead but could not tell what it was. It was in his southbound lane and was then 75 or so feet away. Short applied his brakes and started skidding. The dark object had no lights until he got within 20 to 30 feet. When its lights came on it took off to the south and Short saw that it was a straight truck. Short slowed his tractor-trailer unit down to 5 to 10 miles per hour and he came within 5 feet of the straight truck but did not hit it because the straight truck meanwhile had started moving. Short then put his truck in gear and kept moving because Dale Miller, in the second truck, was close behind him.
When Dale Miller reached the top of the hill, he also observed the headlights of the parked car on the east side of the highway which had been noticed by Short. Miller saw Short's brake lights some on just as he crested the hill. Short was then a little south of the car parked on the east side of the highway.
Miller applied his brakes when he saw Short's brake lights come on and got his truck stopped about a foot from Short's tractor-trailer unit. Miller testified that Short meanwhile had started accelerating and this was the reason that the two units had not collided.
Various distances from the crest of the hill were mentioned by witnesses when asked as to the point where Miller stopped his truck and where it subsequently was hit by the Foley truck, but Miller himself testified that he was 100 to perhaps 150 feet over the crest of the hill when he came to a stop. He did not get his truck started again, and seconds later (at one point Miller estimated the time as perhaps a second or two) the Miller truck was hit in the rear by the Foley truck. The impact was hard and Foley was killed in the accident.
The plaintiff's case was submitted to the jury on the negligence issues of whether defendant drove his truck onto the west half of the highway directly into the path of oncoming traffic, whether defendant failed to have the lights of his truck lighted and whether as a direct result Foley was killed.
Defendant advances two grounds for his contention that his motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained. First, he says that any act of his either of driving onto the west half of the highway into the path of oncoming traffic or of failing to have the lights of his truck lighted was not an efficient or proximate cause of the collision between the second tractor-trailer unit driven by Miller and the third unit driven by Foley. Second, he says that Foley was contributorily negligent as a matter of law in failing to stop before permitting his tractor-trailer to strike the Miller unit. Defendant's position is summarized in the following quotation from his brief:
We consider these contentions together.
Floyd v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo., 280 S.W.2d 74, 78. See also Thebeau v. Thebeau, Mo., 324 S.W.2d 674, 678. 1
We have concluded that defendant Hudson's negligence in driving 'his truck onto the west half of the highway directly into the path of oncoming traffic' started a chain of events which culminated in and were not completed until the collision between the Miller and Foley trucks. The efforts of Short and Miller to stop their trucks were the direct result of the actions of the defendant. Hudson may not have anticipated that the occurrences would happen exactly as they...
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