Gravel v. Roberge

• Decision Date: 16 September 1926
• Citation: 134 A. 375
• Parties: GRAVEL v. ROBERGE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

134 A. 375

GRAVEL

v. ROBERGE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Sept. 16, 1926.

On Motion from Supreme Judicial Court, Androscoggin County, at Law.

Action by Arthur Gravel, administrator, against George F. Roberge. On defendant's motion after verdict for plaintiff. Motion overruled.

Argued before WILSON, C. J., and DEASY, STURGIS, BARNES, and BASSETT, JJ.

Frank A. Morey, of Lewiston, for plaintiff.

Albert Beliveau, of Rumford, for defendant.

DEASY, J. On October 1, 1925, an automobile driven by the defendant turned suddenly from Broad street into Second street in Auburn. Jeanne Gravel, the plaintiff's intestate, a girl nine years old, walking on the crossing at the junction of said streets, with unquestioned care, was by the automobile knocked down and killed.

The fact that the defendant with his car entered the left-hand side of Second street does not prove negligence. The statutory rule, commanding a turning to the right, applies only where one vehicle is "approaching to meet" another. Acts 1921, c. 211, § 2. But he who at any time drives upon the left-hand side of a street should be increasingly watchful.

The defendant says that he did not see the little girl until he "got within five or six feet of her." Up to that time he was looking at another car. He then, attempting to drive over the crossing between the girl and a post, hit both.

As an explanation and excuse he invokes the "sudden emergency" principle. Fernald v. French, 121 Me. 10, 115 A. 420.

Mill street joins Broad near the Second street junction and on the same side of Broad. He says that, driving out of Mill street into Broad, he saw a car called by witnesses the Levasseur car standing in or near the latter street; that this car started suddenly, without warning; and that, watching it, "to be sure whether he was going to hit me," the defendant turned toward and into Second street.

The sudden emergency doctrine is not an exception to the general rule.

The test question is whether the defendant acted as an ordinarily prudent and careful man would have done under the same circumstances. The emergency is one of the circumstances contemplated by the rule. If the defendant's course was one that an ordinarily prudent and careful driver, put in his place, might have taken, he is relieved from liability; otherwise, not. His own judgment or impulse is not in any situation, emergent or otherwise, the law's criterion. The driver is exonerated if the course which he takes in an emergency is one "which might fairly be chosen by an intelligent and prudent person." Skene v. Graham, 114 Me. 234, 95 A. 950.

The Massachusetts court, in Massie v. Barker, 224 Mass. 423, 113 N. E. 199, says:

"If some unforeseen emergency occurs, which naturally would overcome the judgment of the ordinarily careful driver of a motor vehicle, so that momentarily or for a time he is not capable of intelligent action, and as a result injury is inflicted upon a third person, the driver is not negligent."

And the Vermont court, in Lee v. Donnelly, 95 Vt. 121, 113 A. 542, states the principle thus:

"If he [the driver of an automobile confronted with a sudden emergency] acted in the light of all the surrounding circumstances as a careful and prudent man would reasonably act under like circumstances, he did all the law required of him. Whether he did this was a...