Krafft v. Hirt

• Decision Date: 16 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. 37961,37961
• Parties: Wadim KRAFFT, Appellant, v. Robert A. HIRT, Respondent, Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 14

110 N.W.2d 14

260 Minn. 296

Wadim KRAFFT, Appellant, v. Robert A. HIRT, Respondent Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, Respondent.

No. 37961.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 16, 1961.

Syllabus by the Court

1. A violation of the Highway Traffic Regulation Act constitutes prima facie evidence of negligence which will prevail against the violator unless there is countervailing evidence showing a statutory or other reasonable ground for the violation. The parking of telephone company trucks on a bridge in violation of Minn.St. 169.34(13), being reasonably necessary to the construction and maintenance of telephone conduits located on the bridge, was excused and justified in view of Minn.St. 222.37 authorizing the company to use the public roads for this purpose.

2. Where the violator has met his burden of producing evidence, the trial proceeds as if the prima facie case created by statute never existed, and if the evidence rebutting the prima facie case is of such a nature that the minds of reasonable men could not differ on the subject, it is incumbent upon the court to determine the issue of negligence as a matter of law. Since the record here fails to disclose wherein the conduct of the defendant telephone company or its employees deviated from the ordinary standards of due care, the trial court properly dismissed plaintiff's action against the company on the merits.

3. Assuming the matter to be properly before us, the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on the emergency rule.

Affirmed.

Nahurski & Cyptar, St. Paul, for appellant.

Murnane, Murnane, Battis & DeLambert, Randall, Smith & Blomquist, St. Paul, for respondents.

DELL, Chief Justice.

This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff as the result of a motor-vehicle collision caused, so it is claimed, by the concurrent negligence of both defendants.

For several days prior to the accident the defendant Northwestern Bell Telephone Company had been splicing cable contained in the north sidewalk of the Kellogg bridge on Third Street in St. Paul. On the morning of January 9, 1958, two employees of the telephone company parked two of the company's trucks near the middle of the bridge for the purpose of continuing with the splicing job. The trucks were parked in the most northerly lane of the four-lane bridge so as to change the flow of westerly traffic from two lanes to one. Shortly after the trucks were parked, plaintiff turned onto the bridge traveling in the unobstructed westbound lane. According to plaintiff, as he approached the parked trucks an automobile on his right started to turn in front of him to go around the trucks and merge with the traffic in his lane. Plaintiff further testified that as he applied his brakes to avoid a collision his car skidded, its left rear portion crossed the center line, and it collided with a car being driven in an easterly direction by defendant Robert A. Hirt. While there is some conflict in the evidence as to the speed and location of the Hirt vehicle immediately prior to the accident, that is of no consequence on this appeal.

At the close of plaintiff's case the trial court granted the motion of the telephone company for a dismissal on the merits. ¹ The jury returned a general verdict in favor of the remaining defendant, Hirt. Plaintiff appeals from an order denying his motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial as to both defendants.

1. The plaintiff contends that, since the telephone company violated a highway traffic regulation, the trial court erred in refusing to submit the issue of the company's negligence to the jury. Minn.St. 169.34 provides in part:

'No person shall stop, stand, or park a vehicle, except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with the directions of a police officer or traffic-control device, in any of the following places:

'(13) Upon any bridge or other elevated structure upon a highway or within a highway tunnel, except as otherwise provided by ordinance.'

A violation of the Highway Traffic Regulation Act constitutes prima facie evidence of negligence ² which will prevail against the violator unless there is countervailing evidence showing a statutory or other reasonable ground for the violation. ³ The telephone company argues that parking the trucks on the bridge was specifically authorized by statute and that, in any event, it amply established justification and excuse for any violation.

Minn.St. 222.37, grants telephone and other utility companies the right to use public roads for the purpose of constructing and maintaining lines and conduits for their businesses, subject to all reasonable regulations imposed by the local governing body. While we cannot agree that this statute automatically exempts the telephone company from the operation of § 169.34(13), it may, under proper circumstances, afford a basis for justifying a violation of the latter statute. In other words, if the violation is reasonably necessary to the exercise of the rights granted by § 222.37, and the work is performed with due regard for the safety of others, then, in our opinion, the violation would be justified and excusable.

The two employees of the telephone company were called by the plaintiff for cross-examination under the Rules of Civil Procedure. ⁴ They testified that the accident occurred approximately one minute after the trucks had been parked and while they were in the process of setting out warning flags. On previous mornings these flags had been set up so as gradually to divert the traffic from the curb lane to the center lane. The manhole at which the employees were planning to work was located on the sidewalk approximately 632 feet from the east end of the bridge. The trucks were parked on the bridge primarily to prevent the employees from being struck by the overhang of moving vehicles or from objects falling off other trucks. If the telephone trucks had been parked off the bridge, both men would have been required to make three trips each morning and evening to move the required tools from the truck to the job site and back again. These tools included a manhole heater weighing approximately 85 pounds.

While from the testimony it appears that the job, in all likelihood, could have been completed without parking the trucks on the bridge, the method used was manifestly a practical and reasonable one. The test to be applied here is not whether the violation was an absolute necessity but whether, under all of the circumstances, it was reasonably necessary to the exercise of the rights granted by § 222.37. ⁵ The trial court properly concluded that the telephone company had sufficiently met its burden of producing evidence of justification and excuse and had overcome the prima facie case against it.

2. It has been frequently stated that, where the violation of a...