Grue v. Collins

• Decision Date: 07 December 1964
• Docket Number: No. 63,63
• Citation: 205 A.2d 260,237 Md. 150
• Parties: Anna D. GRUE et al. v. Robert Wilson COLLINS. Harry Lee SCHMIDBAUER, etc. v. Anna D. GRUE et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 150

237 Md. 150

205 A.2d 260

Anna D. GRUE et al. v. Robert Wilson COLLINS.

Harry Lee SCHMIDBAUER, etc. v. Anna D. GRUE et al.

No. 63.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 7, 1964.

A. Frederick Taylor, Towson (Martin & Taylor, Towson, and Robert J. Romadka, Baltimore, on the brief), for Anna D. Grue and others.

James H. Langrall, Baltimore (David R. Cohan and Weinberg & Green, Baltimore, on the brief), for Harry Lee Schmidbauer.

Robert J. Thieblot and Samuel S. Smalkin, Baltimore (Rollins, Smalkin, Weston & Andrew, Baltimore, on the brief), for Robert Wilson Collins.

Before HENDERSON, C. J., and HAMMOND, HORNEY, SYBERT and OPPENHEIMER, JJ.

OPPENHEIMER, Judge.

In this appeal from a judgment in their favor against one of the drivers in an automobile accident, the plaintiffs below, joined by the unsuccessful defendant, contend that the trial court erred in refusing to direct a verdict against the other defendant. They claim that the defendant Collins, in whose favor the jury found, was negligent as a matter of law, because he violated the boulevard law and changed lanes without ascertaining that the movement could be made with safety.

In deciding whether a motion for a directed verdict should have been granted, this Court considers the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the verdict is asked. This is true whether the motion is asked by a defendant at the close of the plaintiff's case, Polson v. Martin, 228 Md. 343, 180 A.2d 295 (1962); Gross v. Baltimore Transit Co., 192 Md. 278, 64 A.2d 147 (1949) or whether, as here, the directed verdict was requested by the plaintiffs, at the end of the testimony, against one of the defendants. Brown v. Ellis (No. 28 Sept. Term 1964), 204 A.2d 526.

In this light, the evidence against Collins may be summarized as follows:

Anna D. Grue and her husband, Louis, and Robert Wilson Collins and his wife, were neighbors. Together, they attended a dance sponsored by a neighborhood improvement association. They arrived about nine o'clock and left a little after midnight. While at the dance, Collins drank four or five bottles of beer and the Grues drank 'highballs'. When they left the dance, both couples proceeded in the Collins' station wagon to a restaurant called the 'Ho Joy', about three miles away. Collins drove. He felt he was capable of operating the automobile safely. Mr. Grue concurred, stating he believed Collins to be sober and that he had no doubt about Collins' driving ability at any time during the evening. At the restaurant, Collins had a sandwich and tea but no one in the group consumed any alcoholic beverages. The two couples left the restaurant about 2:30 A.M., went to the parking lot and entered the Collins' car with Collins driving. The parking lot of the restaurant has a private driveway which abuts into the most northerly, or parking lane, of the westbound lanes of Eastern Boulevard. Eastern Boulevard, in the vicinity of the restaurant, runs east and west. There are three westbound lanes separated from the eastbound lanes by a concrete median strip. The parking lane is eight feet wide; next to it is the 'slow' lane and then the 'fast' lane, each twelve feet wide. The highway is blacktop macadam, straight and level, with good visibility for a distance of two blocks in either direction. It is well illuminated at night and on the night of the accident weather conditions were clear and the roadway was dry. Eastern Boulevard is a designated boulevard with a posted speed limit of thirty miles an hour.

Collins intended to make a 'U' turn to proceed east on Eastern Boulevard. To do so, he first had to drive west on Eastern Boulevard to Goeller Avenue to make the crossover. The intersection of Eastern Boulevard and Goeller Avenue is one hundred and seventy-four feet from the center line of the private driveway of the restaurant where it comes into Eastern Boulevard.

In leaving the parking lot, Collins turned his car around for the purpose of entering Eastern Boulevard. He pulled forward and stopped, straddling the sidewalk, and looked to his left. He was able to see as far as the traffic light at Mace Avenue, which is at least a thousand feet to the left, and noted that the light was red for Eastern Boulevard traffic. He saw an automobile coming toward him, approximately three-quarters of a block away, in the slow lane of traffic, and waited for it to pass before he pulled out into Eastern Boulevard. After the car passed, he pulled slowly into the intersection. He glanced to his left but his vision then was somewhat obscured by cars parked in the parking lane immediately to his left. Despite this fact, he was able to see into the fast lane for some two hundred feet and saw nothing coming.

There is a dispute in the testimony as to what happened thereafter. According to Collins, he started across the slow lane in a westerly direction. He started to enter the fast lane about fifty feet from the parking lot driveway. He testified that his car was wholly in the fast lane about fifty feet before he reached the crossover. In the fast lane, he edged over to make the turn. He put on his directional signal or 'blinker' one hundred and twenty or one hundred and twenty-five feet before he reached the crossover. From the time he glanced to his left as he reached Eastern Boulevard and began his turn to the right, he did not look behind him. He was unaware of the car driven by Schmidbauer until the collision.

At the moment of the impact, the Collins' car was at an angle of approximately forty-five degrees to the concrete median strip. The front of the car had cleared the strip and was in the most northerly eastbound lane of Eastern Boulevard. The point of impact was on the left side of the Collins' car, immediately in front of the left rear wheel. Mr. Grue estimated Collins' speed from the restaurant driveway to the crossover at about ten to fifteen miles an hour. At the instant of impact, the vehicle was moving very slowly and appeared to be almost stopped. The impact was severe; Collins testified that the collision bent the frame of his car at the point of impact into a 'U' approximately sixteen inches deep and two feet wide. Mrs. Grue was thrown by the impact from her seat at the right rear of the Collins' station wagon through its rear into the street, a distance estimated as between twelve and fifteen feet. Prior to the collision, the tailgate and rear window of the station wagon were closed and locked. According to Raymond Marsh, who had been at the dance and who saw the collision, the Collins' car was spun around and the impact lifted it about two feet off the ground. Grue testified to the same effect.

Schmidbauer, who was driving the other car in the collision, at the time of the accident, was seventeen years old and had owned the car he was driving for about seven days. He had stopped for the red light at Mace Avenue and found another vehicle beside him which he felt was trying to 'test' him. When the light changed, the other car darted ahead of Schmidbauer but he caught up to it. Schmidbauer estimated his speed at the time he passed the other vehicle and when he put on his brakes to avoid hitting the Collins' car at forty miles an hour, which is ten miles over the speed limit. He said he was one hundred and twenty feet from Goeller Avenue when he first saw the Collins' car.

At the time of the accident, Marsh was standing on Eastern Boulevard with his hand on the handle of his car, which was parked in the parking lane of the boulevard about two hundred and fifty feet from the scene of the accident. He was attracted to the passage of the Schmidbauer vehicle by reason of the impact of the air as it went by him, which he said 'actually staggered' him.

Officer Crabbs, who was called to the scene of the accident shortly after it occurred, testified that the condition of Schmidbauer was normal and that Collins had been drinking. He did not testify that Collins was under the influence of liquor. The officer found no defects in either vehicle other than the damage resulting from the collision. He further testified that Schmidbauer's car laid down one hundred and twenty feet of skid marks and that there were no skid marks from Collins' car.

At the conclusion of the testimony, the Grues moved for a directed verdict against both Collins and Schmidbauer. The motion as to Schmidbauer was denied; the court reserved ruling as to the motion against Collins. Schmidbauer moved for a directed verdict in his favor, which was denied, but did not move for such a verdict against Collins. The jury's verdict was for the Grues against Schmidbauer but in favor of Collins. The Grues renewed their motion for a directed verdict against Collins, which was denied. Collins contends, in this appeal, that Schmidbauer has no standing to argue that the lower court erred in refusing the Grues' motion as to Collins. This is correct, but immaterial, for the Grues have standing to contest the denial of the motion, and Collins is not prejudiced by the fact that this Court has had the benefit of an additional argument, particularly in view of our conclusion. Schmidbauer, in the argument, has abandoned the contention that there was error in the denial of his motion for a directed verdict in his favor. On the evidence, in our opinion, his decision was sound.

After ruling on the motions for directed verdicts, Judge Lindsay carefully and fully instructed the jury as to the law on the various factual issues which he left for their determination. The only matter for us to determine is whether the questions as to Collins' negligence should have been submitted to the jury. We shall first discuss the application of the boulevard law to the evidence, and then the issue as to the change in...