George H. Chaffee v. George A. Duclos

• Decision Date: 02 May 1933
• Citation: 166 A. 2,105 Vt. 384
• Parties: GEORGE H. CHAFFEE v. GEORGE A. DUCLOS
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

166 A. 2

105 Vt. 384

GEORGE H. CHAFFEE v. GEORGE A. DUCLOS

Supreme Court of Vermont

May 2, 1933

February Term, 1933.

Automobiles---Negligence---General Rule as to Speed and Ability To Stop within Range of Lights Not of Invariable Application---Matters Motorist Driving at Night Had Right To Assume---Contributory Negligence---Jury Question.

1. General rule that driver of automobile is guilty of negligence as matter of law in driving at such rate of speed as prevents stopping within time to avoid obstruction within range of his vision is not hard and fast rule that must invariably be applied in every case.

2. In

ACTION OF TORT for negligence. Plea, general issue. Trial by jury in the Addison County municipal court, Leroy Russell, Municipal Judge, presiding. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed.

Wayne C. Bosworth for the defendant.

Charles I. Button for the plaintiff.

Present POWERS, C. J., SLACK, MOULTON, THOMPSON, and GRAHAM, JJ.

OPINION

THOMPSON

In the dusk of the evening of September 3, 1932, and more than thirty minutes after sunset, the defendant, who was traveling westerly on a tarvia surfaced highway, stopped his motor truck loaded with cattle on the part of the highway to the right of its center used by vehicles traveling westerly and left it standing there without any lights being displayed.

The plaintiff in a light Chevrolet truck approached defendant's truck from the southeast. He was traveling on the same side of the road on which defendant's truck was standing. His truck was equipped with headlights as prescribed by law, and they were lighted. He was traveling at a rate of speed of about twenty-five miles an hour and at that rate of speed he could stop in from twenty to twenty-five feet. He did not see defendant's truck until he was about twenty feet from it. He turned sharply to the left to avoid a collision, but collided with the left rear corner of defendant's truck and his own truck was damaged. He brought suit to recover for the damages he sustained. There was a trial by jury and a verdict and a judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant concedes that he was guilty of negligence that was a proximate cause of the collision, but he contends that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence. The question is raised by an exception to the denial of his motion for a directed verdict on that ground.

He claims that since the lights on the plaintiff's truck were legal and legally sufficient, the latter should have seen the defendant's truck when he was at least one hundred feet therefrom; and as a matter of law he was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to see it in time to avoid the collision. In support of this contention he relies upon the statement of the general rule in Steele v. Fuller, 104 Vt. 303, 309, 158 A 666, 668, "that one who drives an automobile along a public highway in the dark must drive at such a speed that it can be stopped within the distance that can be seen ahead of it, i.e., within the range of its headlights." To the same effect are Gallagher v. Montpelier & Wells River R. R., 100 Vt. 299, 137 A. 207, 52 A.L.R 744, and Yardley v. Rutland R. R. Co., 103 Vt. 182, 153 A. 195, 197. In each of those cases the plaintiff was riding in an automobile which ran into a train that was on a grade crossing. We said in the latter case, when discussing the alleged negligence of the defendant:

"In short, the law of these cases is that, aside from the statutory requirements, the care and diligence required of a railroad company in the lawful occupancy of grade crossings with its trains is to be measured by the care and diligence which it has the right to assume will be exercised by travelers on the highway; and that it has the right to assume that a traveler on the highway who is in the exercise of due care and diligence, will adopt such rate of speed as will enable him to stop his car within the distance that he can plainly see the train. In other words, that he will govern his speed by the condition of his lights and his ability to stop his car."

In each of those cases it was held that the defendant was not guilty of negligence that was a proximate cause of the accident.

While the general rule that the driver of an automobile is as matter of law guilty of negligence in driving at such a rate of speed as prevents stopping within time to avoid an obstruction within the range of his vision is supported by reason and the weight of authority, it is not a hard and fast rule that must be invariably applied in every case. Such application, it is said in Kaufman v. Hegeman Transfer & Literage Terminal, 100 Conn. 114, 118, 123 A. 16, 17, "would force the traveler to assume that the highway was liable to be obstructed, and, in view of this, to so travel that he should not collide with any obstruction in the highway however negligently it may have been maintained upon it. It would thus impose upon the traveler the exercise of extraordinary care instead of ordinary care under the circumstances."

In Steele v. Fuller, the plaintiff, when temporarily blinded by the lights of an approaching car, did not stop or slow...