Krause v. Ryan

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: SMITH; BUTZEL, SHARPE and KELLY, JJ., concurred with SMITH; BOYLES; DETHMERS; CARR, C. J., and REID, J., concurred with DETHMERS
• Citation: Krause v. Ryan, 344 Mich. 428, 74 N.W.2d 20 (Mich. 1955)
• Decision Date: 28 December 1955
• Docket Number: 31,Nos. 30,J,s. 30
• Parties: Frederick KRAUSE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dale J. RYAN and Florence Ryan, Defendants-Appellants. Ruth KRAUSE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dale J. RYAN and Florence Ryan, Defendants-Appellants. an. Term.

Page 20

74 N.W.2d 20

344 Mich. 428

Frederick KRAUSE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dale J. RYAN and Florence Ryan, Defendants-Appellants.

Ruth KRAUSE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dale J. RYAN and Florence Ryan, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 30, 31, Jan. Term.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 28, 1955.

Burroughs & Milliken, Flint, for defendants and appellants.

van Benschoten & van Banschoten, Saginaw, for plaintiffs and appellees.

Before the Entire Bench.

SMITH, Justice.

These two cases, which were consolidated for trial, arise out of an intersection collision at the junction of Bristol and Linden roads in Genesee county. In the one case, plaintiff Ruth Krause sought damages for the injuries she sustained and obtained a jury verdict in the sum of $6,700. In the other case, Frederick Krause, the husband of plaintiff Ruth Krause, obtained a verdict in the sum of $1,177.10, a judgment being entered in this amount for his expenses and loss of services.

About 5:45 o'clock in the afternoon of February 20, 1953, Mrs. Krause was driving an automobile in an easterly direction on Bristol road. At the same time defendant Dale J. Ryan, who was 17 years old at the time, was driving his mother's automobile in a southerly direction on Linden road. Bristol is a through highway at its intersection with Linden road, stop signs being posted on Linden at the appropriate corners thereof. P.A.1949, No. 300, § 671, Comp.Laws Supp.1954 to C.L.1948, § 257.671, Stat.Ann.1952 Rev. § 9.2371. Ryan at the time was on his way to attend a basketball game in Linden, Michigan, and had with him in the automobile 6 other youths, 3 of them occupying the front seat with the defendant. Upon reaching the intersection, Ryan failed to observe the 'stop' sign and thereafter struck plaintiff's automobile on the left side. Approximately 1/10th of a mile before the intersection of Bristol road there was a warning sign on Linden road signifying 'Stop Ahead.' Defendant testified that he did not see this warning sign, or the stop sign, or the plaintiff's automobile before the accident, except that he obtained a brief glimpse of the automobile immediately prior to the impact when his brother, who was sitting in the front seat, yelled, 'Look Out.'

Plaintiff testified that, when approximately 450-500 feet from the intersection of Linden road, she reduced her speed from 50 to 30 miles per hour. At about 400 feet from the intersection she made observations right and left and saw no other cars approaching. She again looked to the left when approximately 100 feet from the intersection and observed defendants' automobile about 160-170 feet from the intersection, proceeding at an estimated speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour. Assuming that the defendant would stop at the intersection and that he could do so, plaintiff did not look again until defendants' automobile was practically upon her.

At the close of plaintiffs' proofs, defendants made a motion for a directed verdict on the ground that plaintiff Ruth Krause was guilty of contributory negligence. Ruling on this motion was reserved. It was renewed again at the conclusion of all the proofs and decision again was reserved. After the jury's verdicts, defendants moved for judgment non obstante veredicto, which was subsequently denied. Appellants claim that under the facts plaintiff driver failed to show freedom from, and is guilty of, contributory negligence as a matter of law, and that the trial judge erred in denying their motions for a directed verdict and subsequent motion for judgment non obstante veredicto. It is unnecessary to cite the numerous authorities that on a motion for a directed verdict the testimony must be considered in the light most favorable to plaintiffs.

The appellants stress our holding in Holley v. Farley, 289 Mich. 676, 287 N.W. 341, which case also involved (at the intersection of an arterial and subordinate highway) an automobile collision. Verdict against the driver on the arterial highway was directed in the trial court and this Court upheld the direction on the ground of contributory negligence on the part of such driver. Appellants insist that our holding in the Holley Case justified a similar result in case at bar.

The determination of this case requires our consideration of the rights and duties of an automobile driver upon an arterial highway as opposed to those of a driver upon an inferior or subordinate road. The former road, the arterial highway, is a highway designed to expedite the flow of traffic. Cars must of necessity move thereon in great volume and at relatively high speeds. Within the lives of many of us, travel thereon at speeds the maintenance of which, on a crowded highway, would once have been deemed negligence per se has become commonplace, any required. As a consequence, the public authorities and the law have become properly solicitous of the arterial driver, driving at high speed a powerful machine in close proximity to others equally perilously engaged. Thus, the erection (as in the case at bar) of signs commanding all crossing traffic to come to a halt before venturing into the arterial road, and the judicial recognition, as in Arnold v. Krug, 279 Mich. 702, 707, 273 N.W. 322, 324, that the driver on an arterial highway has a right of way which is 'something more than the privilege of going through the intersection in advance of a car which reaches it at the same time.'

The driver on the arterial, we have decided, is the favored driver. It is not necessary in approaching an intersection, as we said in Arnold v. Krug, supra, that he 'have his car under such control * * * that he may stop at once and avoid collision with persons who may illegally come into his path.' Lacking notice otherwise, he may assume that others using the highways will comply with the rules of the road and properly posted signs and he is not guilty of contributory negligence in acting upon such assumption. It should not, however, be assumed from the foregoing that he may proceed blindly upon the arterial, secure in the supposition that he can do no wrong. He must remain alert to the hazards surrounding him and with which he is confronting others. We do not propose to attempt an enumeration of the various actions required of him. So far as the question in this case is concerned, he is undoubtedly required to make observation of the traffic apparently to cross his path from intersecting streets and to act reasonably in the light of such observation. Thus we reach the point of divergence between this case and that urged upon us by appellants, Holley v. Farley, supra. In the Holley case the favored driver failed completely in this essential duty. We need not speculate as to what he might have seen had he observed and what he might then, with such information, have done as a reasonably prudent man. Cases there may well be in which even the favored driver may be negligent as a matter of law, as where he takes no action for his own safety after having observed a car approaching on a subordinate road, erratically driven, at a grossly excessive rate of speed, and threatening an imminent crossing of his path. In this extremity he may no longer rely on his favored status. He must act as best he can for the protection of all involved. But such is obviously the unusual case. In the case before us the favored driver made the required observation of the approach of defendants' car. With the knowledge derived from such observation, plus the knowledge of her own favored status, she reached the conclusion that she could safely maintain her course and speed. She did so, but collision ensued. In such a situation reasonable minds could differ as to whether or not she exercised reasonable care and the question of contributory negligence was properly submitted to the jury. We cannot say that under such circumstances plaintiff driver was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. Breker v. Rosema, 301 Mich. 685, 4 N.W.2d 57, 141 A.L.R. 867, and authorities cited therein. See, also, generally, Marrs v. Taylor, 327 Mich. 674, 42 N.W.2d 780; Trune v. Grahl, 337 Mich. 659, 60 N.W.2d 129; and Soltar v. Anderson, 340 Mich. 242, 65 N.W.2d 777.

In so doing, do we repudiate the established case law of this State? We hold not. The answer to the cases cited by our brother DETHMERS in support of his position is that the case law evolved in other fact situations (collisions at intersections unguarded by the peremptory posted command to stop, pedestrian cases, and the like) does not here control. We recognize, of course, that we ever seek certainty in the law, groping for that universal rule which we have but to discover and enunciate in order that justice may follow the wrong as the day the night. Have we found it in the 'rule,' applicable in all cases involving carelessness, that negligence is a want of that care which reasonable men would exercise under the same or similar circumstances? Having this rule, can we cite broadly from one negligence situation to another? We fear not. The filed of negligence is too broad. We find within it all kinds and conditions of men, from the surgeon at the operating table to the child at the edge of the highway, measuring with uncertain gaze and rising panic the speed of the oncoming truck against the distance to safety. Both situations, it is true, involve care, and both involve humans, but there the similarity stops. Even in that relatively narrow area of negligence involving moving vehicles, intersections, pedestrians, stop signs, arterial highways and traffic lights we find an infinite variety of problems, each with its peculiar circumstances, it unique considerations of care or the lack thereof. At the moment our problem is the determination of negligence on the high-speed, heavy-volume artery of traffic, known as the expressway, the throughway, or the arterial highway. It has its own peculiar considerations, arising out of its peculiar hazards. It cannot be solved by ...