Medved v. Doolittle
| Decision Date | 06 July 1945 |
| Docket Number | No. 34008.,No. 34007.,34007.,34008. |
| Citation | 19 N.W.2d 788,220 Minn. 352 |
| Parties | MEDVED v. DOOLITTLE et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Washington County; Alfred P. Stolberg, Judge.
Action by Kate Medved, special administratrix of the estate of Mildred Medved, deceased, against Claude E. Doolittle and others to recover for the sole benefit of decedent's minor daughter for decedent's wrongful death in a collision between an automobile operated by decedent's husband and defendants' parked truck. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.
Reversed with directions.
Freeman, King & Geer, of Minneapolis, and Charles H. Weyl, of St. Paul, for appellants.
Karl G. Neumeier, of Stillwater, and Charles T. Wangensteen, of Chisholm, for respondent.
This is an action for wrongful death brought only for the sole benefit of decedent's minor daughter notwithstanding the fact that decedent's husband also survived her. After verdict for plaintiff, defendants moved for judgment non obstante. They appeal from the judgment entered after denial of their motions.
The fatal accident occurred on December 22, 1943, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, daylight saving time, on the part of highway No. 8 known as the Minneapolis-Forest Lake Cut-off. The highway has three paved lanes, each nine feet wide. At about 11 o'clock on the night before the accident, defendant Doolittle's heavily loaded tractor-trailer truck became disabled by the breaking of a bearing of the rear wheels of the tractor while he was proceeding on his right side of the road in the south lane toward Forest Lake at a point about three miles distant therefrom. Doolittle left the truck standing there, where it remained until after the happening of the fatal accident. He set out flares and then went to Forest Lake, where he engaged the defendant Hallberg to make needed repairs. The next day Hallberg caused the necessary repairs to be made.
At about 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 22d, Doolittle, Hallberg, and the latter's employe went to the truck. Hallberg and his employe were to complete the repairs by putting the left rear wheel, which had been removed, back on the tractor. After this was done, Doolittle intended to proceed with his truck. It was about ten degrees below zero at the time. Doolittle started the engine and turned on the heater in the cab so that Hallberg and his employe could warm themselves when they got cold. While they were thus engaged, decedent and her husband came from behind in the south lane in an automobile driven by him at the speed of 38 miles per hour, going in the same direction as the truck, and crashed into its rear end with such terrific force as to cause her death and demolish the automobile in which they had been riding.
The evidence is undisputed that parking the truck on the pavement left a clear and unobstructed strip of highway only 18 feet in width (the middle and north lanes each nine feet wide) instead of 20 feet as required by Minn.St.1941, § 169.32 (Mason St.1940 Supp. § 2720-217), and that flares were set out on the night of the 21st as required by § 169.75 (§ 2720-264); but it is conflicting as to whether flags were set out during the day of the 22d as required by the last-cited statute.
The accident occurred during broad daylight. The day was "kind of cloudy." The windshield on the husband's automobile was somewhat frosted. Neither the fact that it was kind of cloudy nor that the windshield was somewhat frosted prevented the husband from seeing what was ahead of him. It is undisputed that decedent's husband first saw the truck parked in the south lane when he was a little over a quarter of a mile away and that he kept looking ahead. When queried concerning various distances at which he saw the truck, he testified that he remembered seeing it straight ahead of him when he was a little over a quarter of a mile away from it, 500 feet away and 150 or 175 feet away. When he was only 150 or 175 feet away, he looked sideways at his wife, who was either sleeping or dozing with two hats in her lap. The next thing he knew the crash occurred; he had run directly into the rear of the truck. He was looking at his wife when the collision occurred. He did not turn into one of the other lanes of travel then open and unobstructed, which he testified he could have done. He testified that the truck appeared to him to be moving; and that, because of that fact, he paid no attention to it notwithstanding the fact that he steadily was cutting down the distance between it and his car.
While it is a fact that the truck's motor was running, there was no evidence that the husband was aware of that fact. Likewise, there was no evidence that it gave off any visible exhaust vapors. Consequently, plaintiff made no claim that the husband was in any way misled by the fact that the motor was running or that there were any vapors from the exhaust. On the contrary, her only claim was that defendants were negligent because they violated the statutes mentioned by permitting the truck to stand on the pavement and by failing to set out flags during the day to warn travelers of the presence of the truck on the highway, and that such negligence caused the accident.
According to an estimate, 500 automobiles had passed the truck while it stood on the pavement without incident of any sort. Apparently the passing cars approached it both from the front and rear.
Defendants deny negligence, claiming that the truck was disabled to such extent that it was impossible to avoid stopping and temporarily leaving it on the highway pending the making of necessary repairs, and that leaving it there under the circumstances was authorized by § 169.32 (§ 2720-217). Plaintiff's evidence made it a fact question whether the truck was so disabled. The defendant Doolittle also claimed that he was not liable, upon the ground that the defendant Hallberg was an independent contractor, for whose negligence, if any, he was not liable. Both defendants also contended that violation of statute or negligence on their part, if any, was not a proximate cause of the collision, and that the negligence of decedent's husband was a superseding, intervening cause and the sole cause thereof. The trial court held that the husband was negligent as a matter of law, but that his negligence was not imputable to decedent, and submitted the issues of negligence and proximate cause to the jury. Implicit in the verdict are findings that both defendants were negligent and that their negligence was the proximate cause of the collision.
On the appeal the same questions are raised. We shall consider first the question whether defendants' negligence was as a matter of law a proximate cause of the collision, because, if decision on that point is in favor of defendants, that ends the case in their favor and renders unnecessary consideration of the other questions presented.
Negligence or an act in violation of statute is not actionable unless it was the proximate cause of the injury charged, even though the negligent act or omission is declared by statute to be negligence per se. Curwen v. Appleton Mfg. Co., 133 Minn. 28, 157 N.W. 899. The rule has been applied as a matter of course in cases involving automobiles, trains, structures, and obstacles upon a highway either placed or constructed there in violation of statute. Anderson v. Johnson, 208 Minn. 373, 294 N.W. 224; Mechler v. McMahon, 184 Minn. 476, 239 N.W. 605; Flaherty v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 218 Minn. 488, 16 N.W.2d 553; Lundstrom v. Giacomo, 194 Minn. 624, 261 N.W. 465; Lind v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 171 Minn. 486, 214 N.W. 763; Wicker v. North States Const. Co. Inc., 183 Minn. 79, 235 N.W. 630. Likewise, contributory negligence is no defense unless it was the proximate cause of plaintiff's harm. Ranum v. Swenson, Minn., 19 N.W.2d 327, filed June 8, 1945. Here, the parking of the truck on the highway and the failure to set out flags constituted violations of the highway traffic regulation act. The act declares a violation thereof prima facie evidence of negligence. Rogers v. Minneapolis St. Ry. Co., 218 Minn. 454, 16 N.W.2d 516.
It is asserted here that the negligence, if any, of defendants was not the proximate cause of decedent's death, because the negligence of the husband as the driver of the car in which she was riding was a superseding, intervening cause thereof which insulated defendants' negligence and thereby relieved them of liability. So far as causation is concerned, it makes very little difference here whether we speak in terms of proximate cause or substantial factor in producing the harm. Generally speaking, the proximate cause of an injury is the act or omission which causes it directly or immediately, or through a natural sequence of events, without the intervention of another independent and efficient cause. It must be the predominant cause. Russell v. German Fire Ins. Co., 100 Minn. 528, 111 N.W. 400, 10 L.R.A.,N.S., 326; Christianson v. Chicago, St. P. M. & O. Ry Co., 67 Minn. 94, 69 N.W. 640. The substantial-factor rule adopted in Peterson v. Fulton, 192 Minn. 360, 256 N.W. 901, from Restatement, Torts, is paragraph (a) of § 431 thereof, to the effect that the negligence charged must be a substantial factor in bringing about the harm.
The problem here is not one simply of proximate cause or substantial factor in producing the harm, but one of superseding, intervening cause. The rules with respect to proximate cause and substantial factor producing the harm are limited by those with respect to superseding, intervening causes. Generally speaking, a superseding, intervening cause is an act of plaintiff or of a third person, in no way caused by defendant's negligence, or a force of nature, occurring after defendant's negligent act or omission and operating as an independent force to produce the injury. A superseding, intervening cause breaks the chain of causation set in operation...
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