Lathrop v. Knight
| Decision Date | 08 April 1941 |
| Docket Number | 45512. |
| Citation | 297 N.W. 291,230 Iowa 272 |
| Parties | LATHROP v. KNIGHT (S. & M. FINANCE CO., Intervenor). |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Carroll County; P. J. Klinker, Judge.
An action by I. P. Lathrop against Helen Knight and the Herald Publishing Company to recover damages for injuries sustained in a collision between his automobile and the automobile owned and operated by Helen Knight while she was in the employment of the Herald Publishing Company. The S. & M Finance Company intervened. Motion to strike the petition of intervention was sustained. Motion to direct a verdict in favor of the Herald Publishing Company was sustained. The jury returned a verdict in favor of I. P. Lathrop and against the defendant, Helen Knight. Helen Knight has appealed. Opinion states the facts.
Affirmed.
Putnam, Putnam, Fillmore & Putnam and Kern & Faville, all of Des Moines, and Helmer & Minnich, of Carroll, for appellant.
Doran & Doran, of Boone, and Saul & Sweany, of Carroll, for appellee I. P. Lathrop.
Reynolds, Meyers & Tan Creti, of Carroll, for appellee Herald Pub. Co.
E. C Corry, Jr., of Des Moines, and White & Bruner, of Carroll, for intervenor-appellee S. & M. Finance Co.
This is an intersection case. The place where the collision occurred is known as a four-corner intersection, about a mile and a half to three-quarters south of the town of Ralston, Greene County, Iowa. The north and south road across the intersection is on the county line between Greene and Carroll Counties, and is a county trunk highway. The east and west road intersects at right angles with the north and south road. Both roads were graveled. The graveled portion of the north and south road, south of the intersection, is 22 feet. The graveled portion of the east and west road, west of the intersection, is 15 feet, and east of the intersection 28 feet.
Helen Knight delivered papers for the Herald Publishing Company of Carroll. She furnished the car, and the route she traveled daily was about 82 miles. On August 1, 1938, Helen Knight driving a new Ford sedan, left Carroll at approximately four P.M., to deliver newspapers to various towns. At about six P.M., she was traveling north on the county trunk highway toward the four corner-intersection. I. P. Lathrop drove a Plymouth east on the east and west road toward the same intersection. He testified that he stopped his car and looked to the south and saw no car approaching, and then drove into the intersection at a rate of speed between 12 and 15 miles per hour. The Knight car and the Lathrop car collided at a point east of the center of the graveled portion of the north and south county trunk road. The left front of the Knight car struck the Lathrop car, behind the right front wheel.
Lathrop commenced this action against Helen Knight and the Herald Publishing Co., basing his claim against the Herald Publishing Co. upon the theory of a relationship of employer and employee between the Herald Co. and Helen Knight. The S. & M. Co. intervened in the action, claiming it was the owner of the Lathrop car under a conditional sales contract. There was a motion to strike the petition of intervention, which was sustained. The S. & M. Co. has not appealed. At the close of plaintiff's evidence, both Helen Knight and the Herald Co. moved for a directed verdict. The court sustained the motion of the Herald Co., and overruled the motion of Helen Knight. No appeal was taken from the ruling of the lower court directing a verdict in favor of the Herald Publishing Co. Helen Knight renewed her motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence, and the court again overruled it. The case was submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict for the plaintiff. Helen Knight filed a motion for a new trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which was overruled. She has appealed.
Better than half of the able brief of the appellant is directed to the contention that the trial court erred in overruling her motion for a directed verdict, predicated upon the claim that the appellee's evidence establishes conclusively that the appellee was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, because he failed to yield the right of way to the appellant, because he proceeded into the intersection when he knew there was imminent danger and because he failed to maintain a proper lookout.
In passing upon appellant's motion for a directed verdict, it was the duty of the trial court to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the appellee, and to consider all of the evidence, not merely that of the appellant.
It is the contention of the appellant that appellee was contributorily negligent because he failed to yield the right of way.
There is evidence from which the jury could find that as Lathrop approached this intersection he stopped his car and looked to the south, that he could see a distance of from 130 to 200 feet south on the county trunk highway, that he saw no car approaching. To overcome this evidence, the appellant argues that the physical facts show that if appellee looked to the south and could see a distance of 130 feet as he testified he would have seen the Knight car. Appellant says that appellee traveling at a rate of speed between 12 and 15 miles an hour would traverse 37 feet in about 1 1/2 seconds. That appellant traveling at the rate of 50 miles an hour, which appellant says is 3 1/3 times as fast, would travel about 110 feet, and that appellant's car would have been within the distance appellee said he could see. Of course, the jury could have found that appellee was only traveling at the rate of speed of 12 miles an hour, which would make the appellant traveling at a rate a little over four times as fast. Then there is evidence of an admission made by the appellant that she was traveling better than fifty miles an hour. The trouble with appellant's theory is that there is other evidence than that which they rely upon to prove what they call the physical facts. Appellant claims that appellee should have observed the approach of appellant's car. Appellee testified that he looked and did not see the car approaching, that he could see a distance of between 130 and 200 feet. There is evidence in this record upon which the jury could have found that appellee could have looked down to the south, and that appellant's car was not then within the range of his view which was between 130 and 200 feet. Appellant claims that the rate of speed of appellant's car is fixed at 50 miles per hour, with this we do not agree. There is testimony that Mrs. Knight herself said after the accident that she was traveling better than...
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