Marguerite L'ecuyer v. Earl Farnsworth

• Decision Date: 06 February 1934
• Parties: MARGUERITE L'ECUYER v. EARL FARNSWORTH
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

170 A. 677

106 Vt. 180

MARGUERITE L'ECUYER v. EARL FARNSWORTH

Supreme Court of Vermont

February 6, 1934

January Term, 1934.

Evidence---Judicial Notice of Matters of Common Knowledge---Negligence---Automobiles---Skidding of Automobile Alone Insufficient To Constitute Negligence---Request of Guest Riding in Automobile to Operator, Ten or Fifteen Minutes before Accident, "Not to Go Too Fast," on Question of Negligence---Insufficiency of Evidence To Show Gross Negligence.

1. Supreme Court will take judicial notice as matter of common knowledge that sudden and unexpected skidding of automobile is one of natural hazards of driving cars on icy roads.

2. In

ACTION OF TORT for negligence to recover damages for personal injuries received in automobile accident while riding as guest in defendant's automobile. Plea, not guilty. Trial by jury at the June Term, 1934, Addison County, Sturtevant J., presiding. Verdict directed for defendant, and judgment thereon. The plaintiff excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed.

Wm R. McFeeters for the plaintiff.

M G. Leary and K. Paul Fennell for the defendant.

Present: SLACK, MOULTON, THOMPSON, and GRAHAM, JJ.

OPINION

THOMPSON

This is an action of tort in which the plaintiff seeks to recover damages for personal injuries received in an automobile accident while riding as a guest in the defendant's automobile. She alleges in her complaint that the accident was caused by the gross and wilful negligence of the defendant in the operation of his car. At the close of the evidence, the court directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that the plaintiff had not proved that the defendant was guilty of gross negligence in the operation of his car. The plaintiff was allowed an exception.

The parties and a Miss Leonard, who was driving the car at the time of the accident, live in Vergennes. The accident occurred in February, 1932. The defendant, who had been in poor health for some time, desired to go to Burlington to see his physician, and he asked Miss Leonard to drive his car for him. She agreed to drive it, and, with his consent, asked the plaintiff to go with them. The plaintiff knew that Miss Leonard was going to drive the car. They left Vergennes about seven o'clock in the evening, stayed in Burlington about an hour and a half, and then started on the return trip. The defendant's car was a Chevrolet coupe.

The following facts appear from the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.

The road from Burlington to Vergennes has a cement surface through the town of Charlotte. When they started for home it had grown colder and was raining. The road was slippery in places caused by the rain freezing on its hard surface. After they had traveled ten or fifteen miles from Burlington, the plaintiff had noticed two slippery places in the road, and ten or fifteen minutes before the accident occurred, she asked Miss Leonard "once or twice not to go too fast." The plaintiff testified that the accident happened so quickly that she could not tell how it happened; but she remembered that the car swerved, that it went forward and then back, and finally came in contact with a tree; that she didn't remember hardly anything after that.

The accident happened near Charlotte village. They had traveled down a long hill, called Mutton Hill, and, after a turn at the bottom to the left, the road toward Vergennes was nearly straight with a slight grade. While traveling over this part of the road, they came to a place where the road was shaded on both sides by trees and...