Hatch v. Daniels

• Decision Date: 08 May 1922
• Parties: BENJAMIN HATCH v. EARL DANIELS
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

117 A. 105

96 Vt. 89

BENJAMIN HATCH v. EARL DANIELS

Supreme Court of Vermont

May 8, 1922

February Term, 1922. Opinion field May 8, 1922.

ACTION OF TORT for negligence in leaving an unlighted automobile in a public highway after dark. Plea, the general issue. Trial by jury at the September Term, 1921, Washington County Moulton, J., presiding. At the close of plaintiff's evidence the court directed a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

F L. Laird and H. C. Shurtleff for plaintiff.

Fred E. Gleason for defendant.

Present WATSON, C. J., POWERS, TAYLOR, MILES, and SLACK, JJ.

OPINION

POWERS

In the evening of November 13, 1920, the plaintiff was driving his automobile from Adamant to Montpelier. When he rounded the curve in front of the dwelling of G. E. Anderson in East Montpelier, the defendant's Ford car was standing in the highway with its engine running and lights out. It was headed toward Adamant, and stood a little to its left of the middle of the road. When the plaintiff's car completed the curve and its lights shone down the straight road, he discovered the defendant's car, but thought it was coming toward him and acted accordingly. He took his foot off the accelerator, applied his foot brake, and turned out to his right. When he first saw the defendant's car, he was about 133 feet from it, and was driving 18 or 20 miles an hour. As he turned out, he slowed down to 14 or 16 miles an hour, and being mindful of a bank which dropped off several feet on the right side of the road, he watched out for it lest he should turn out too far. When he reached a point 25 or 30 feet from the standing car, he discovered it was not moving and that a collision was imminent. He immediately applied his foot brake in an attempt to stop his car--applied it so vigorously that his rear wheels slid for a distance of eight feet or more. His car slowed down to 10 miles an hour, but did stop. It collided with the defendant's car, and was thrown over the bank and wrecked. This suit was brought to recover for the damages to his car and the injuries to his person that resulted. At the close of the plaintiff's evidence below, a verdict was ordered for the defendant, and the plaintiff excepted.

That there was evidence tending to establish the negligence charged against the defendant is too plain for denial. G. L. 4709 requires automobiles in use or at rest upon a highway after dark to display at least two lamps in front, and G. L. 4718 penalizes the noncompliance with this provision. We need take no time with the defendant's explanation of how his lights came to be out, for there was testimony tending to show that they had been turned off, and the car left unattended in the road. This testimony comes quite largely from the defendant, himself. He testified that his car was so constructed and equipped that his headlights would burn only when the engine was running; that the wiring was such that if one of these lights went out, the other would; but if one light became disabled and went out, the other could be made to burn by "grounding" a certain wire on the frame of the car. Several witnesses testified that after the accident, when the defendant's car was "cranked up," one of the headlights came on and burned. The defendant denied this, to be sure, but the jury might have believed it, and from it might have inferred that the wire had been grounded as above before the collision, and that the defendant had turned off the one light that would burn. No other way of preventing the light from burning when the engine ran is suggested by the record, assuming, of course, that it came on as above.

Then, too, some of the witnesses testified that they saw no one in the defendant's car at or before the time of the collision. Of course this was not conclusive that there was no one then in the car, but in the circumstances shown, the jury might think that if any one was in the Ford, some one in the plaintiff's car would have seen him and conclude that the car in fact was unoccupied. So there was credible evidence tending to show a deliberate violation of the statute referred to.

But even so, it does not necessarily follow that the defendant's negligence was actionable. The violation of the statute would be of no consequence here, unless it was a proximate cause of the accident sued on. Hoadley's Admr. v. International Paper Co., 72 Vt. 79, 47 A. 169; Corbin v. Grand Trunk Ry. Co., 78 Vt. 458, 63 A. 138; Dervin v. Frenier, 91 Vt. 398, 100 A. 760; Gilman v. Central Vermont Ry. Co., 93 Vt. 340, 107 A. 122, 16 A. L. R. 1102. In other words, the statute avails the plaintiff nothing, unless the lack of lights was a proximate factor in the collision. Carlton v. Boudar, 118 Va. 521, 88 S.E. 174, 4 A. L. R. 1480.

As presented by this record, the question of proximate cause was one of fact, and the burden of proof was on the plaintiff. It was not necessary, however, that this fact should be proved by direct and positive testimony. It was enough, if there was evidence, direct or circumstantial, from which a logical inference of the causal relation could be drawn. It may be ad- mitted that there was no direct evidence thus connecting the absence of lights with the accident. The plaintiff did not testify that he was thus misled. Yet, the circumstances were such that the jurors, as practical men of affairs, well might infer this fact. It is reasonable to assume from the situation disclosed by the record, that if the defendant's headlights had been burning, the plaintiff would have sooner discovered that there was a car in the road, and would have been the better enabled to judge whether it was standing still or approaching. It was for the jury to say how this would be.

It was also necessary for the plaintiff to give evidence that he was in the exercise of due care at the time. As we have seen, the plaintiff discovered the defendant's car when it was 133 feet away. It is not suggested that he did not discover it as soon as his lights picked it up, but it is said that he rounded the curve too fast. But if he did, it had nothing whatever to do with the discovery of defendant's car. The record discloses nothing to indicate that the plaintiff ought sooner to have seen it. When he did see it he had plenty of time to avoid it. But he made the mistake of assuming that it was approaching him. Surely it cannot be said as matter of law that this was negligence. It was at least a question for the jury. Whether a prudent man would or could reach this conclusion depended upon various circumstances; the very fact that the car was there...