Langdon-Davies v. Stalbird, LANGDON-DAVIES

• Decision Date: 06 September 1960
• Docket Number: No. 1002,LANGDON-DAVIES,1002
• Parties: Jenniferv. Marjorie A. STALBIRD.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Page 873

163 A.2d 873

122 Vt. 56

Jennifer LANGDON-DAVIES v. Marjorie A. STALBIRD.

No. 1002.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

Sept. 6, 1960.

J. Malcolm Williams, Poultney, for plaintiff.

Ryan, Smith & Carbine, Rutland, for defendant.

Before HOLDEN, SHANGRAW, BARNEY and SMITH, JJ., and MORRISON, Superior Judge.

BARNEY, Justice.

The single question of this appeal is the sufficiency of the plaintiff-passenger's evidence to establish gross negligence on the part of the defendant-driver, as required by the provisions of our guest passenger statute, 23 U.S.A. § 1491. The issue was raised during the trial by defendant's motions for a directed verdict at the close of plaintiff's case and at the end of all of the evidence, and, after verdict, by defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

The plaintiff and a Miss Judith Loewe were riding with the defendant on the front seat of the defendant's car as she was driving from Wells to Poultney on Route 30 on June 30, 1959. At 7:15 P.M., with the weather clear, the blacktop pavement dry and visibility good, the defendant's car, travelling at about 40 miles per hour in an area where the legal maximum of fifty miles per hour applied, reached the middle of a rather sharp lefthand turn. At this point the defendant heard a noise as of small stones against her fender and abruptly applied her brakes, whereupon the car, travelling about fifty feet, spun almost completely around and out of control and then tipped over onto its right side. The plaintiff's right arm was pinned under the overturned car, causing the injuries for which she seeks recovery. The evidence discloses that the occupants of the car were engaged in general conversation as they travelled from Wells; that the defendant, up until the time she applied her brakes in the midst of the curve, had not diminished speed in negotiating the turn; and that the car, in going around the curve, passed at least partially off the right edge of the pavement onto the shoulder. At the time of the accident there was no traffic on the road from either direction. The defendant was acknowledged to be a capable driver of about four years experience, but was not particularly familiar with this highway.

It has become a truism to say that the decided cases are of little assistance in determining the existence of gross negligence under the evidence in a particular case. Each case turns almost entirely on its own peculiar factual situation. Emery v. Small, 117 Vt. 138, 140, 86 A.2d 542; Powers v. Lackey, 109 Vt. 505, 506, 1 A.2d 693. It would seem fitting to account for this apparent absence of certainty in this area of the law.

Since it involves the question of the sufficiency of evidence, the questitative measuring of the 'grossness' of a defendant's negligence is, within the limits of rational and reasonable logical processes, a weighing of testimony and a passing upon credibility. This is the traditional province of the jury as triers of...