Merritt v. Darden

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Before BRUNE; HORNEY
• Citation: Merritt v. Darden, 176 A.2d 205, 227 Md. 589 (Md. 1962)
• Decision Date: 21 February 1962
• Docket Number: No. 65,65
• Parties: Dan Roenell MERRITT v. Mary English DARDEN. William Herbert DARDEN, III, etc. v. Dan Roenell MERRITT.

Page 589

227 Md. 589

176 A.2d 205

Dan Roenell MERRITT v. Mary English DARDEN.

William Herbert DARDEN, III, etc. v. Dan Roenell MERRITT.

No. 65.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 21, 1962.

Wilbert McInerney, Rockville (John S. McInerney, Rockville, on the brief), for Dan Roenell Merritt.

Edwin H. Pierce, Jr., Alexandria, Va., and Lansdale G. Sasscer, Jr., Upper Marlboro (Sasscer, Clagett & Powers, Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for Mary English Darden and William H. Darden, III.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, HORNEY and SYBERT, JJ.

HORNEY, Judge.

The appeals in this case, involving a motor vehicle accident, arise out of alleged errors on the part of the trial court in refusing to rule as a matter of law on a motion for a directed verdict concerning a question as to imputed negligence and in giving an incorrect instruction to the jury with respect to the same question.

The plaintiff below, Mary English Darden (usually referred to herein as the mother or owner of the favored motor vehicle), in her own right, and as next friend of her son, William Herbert Darden, III, an infant (usually referred to herein as the son or operator of the favored vehicle), sued Dan Roenell Merritt, the defendant below (referred to herein as the defendant or Merritt) for personal injuries and property damages resulting from a collision between the respective motor vehicles of the mother and the defendant at the intersection of Route 301 (a Maryland highway) and Route 228 (a Charles County highway).

On a week in the first part of June of 1959, the mother and son left Suffolk (Virginia) to visit relatives in Ithaca (New York) and in Crowdersville (Pennsylvania). On the trip north the mother and son shared the responsibility of driving the automobile. But on the trip south, the son had done all of the driving to the place where the accident occurred. At that time the mother was occupying the front seat of the automobile with the son. The collision occurred at about 5:20 on a Sunday afternoon.

Route 301, at the intersection in which the accident happened, is a divided highway with two lanes northbound on one side of the median strip and two lanes southbound on the other side. Traffic at the intersection with Route 228 was normally controlled by traffic signals, but a few minutes before the accident there had been a power failure and the electric signals were not operating. As a consequence, traffic entering the intersection from the east was required to stop first at the 'stop' sign on the right of Route 228 before crossing the northbound lanes of the through highway and again at the 'yield the right of way' sign on the right of the median strip before crossing the southbound lanes.

At the time of the accident, several motor vehicles (including that of a State Trooper who witnessed the collision) traveling in a northerly direction on Route 301 had stopped in both lanes at the intersection with Route 228. And, according to the trooper, at least one motor vehicle traveling in a southerly direction on Route 301 had also stopped in the fast lane at the intersection. The defendant, traveling in a westerly direction on Route 228, came to a full stop before entering Route 301 and, presuming the automobiles to his left had stopped to permit him to proceed, crossed both northbound lanes on to the crossway in the median strip, and then, assuming that the automobile (or automobiles) to his right in the fast southbound lane had also stopped for him, proceeded to cross the southbound lanes and was struck in the slow lane by the oncoming Darden automobile traveling in a southerly direction at a reduced rate of speed (obedient to a 'caution' sign about sixty or seventy yards from the intersection) following other automobiles that had gone through the intersection in the slow lane without mishap. The defendant testified that he did not see the oncoming Darden automobile in the slow southbound lane. And the plaintiff-operator, who did not see the Merritt automobile until his mother warned him as to its presence, testified that he applied the brakes immediately and swerved to the right, but was unable to avoid striking the crossing Merritt automobile. On the other hand, the plaintiff-owner, who was not looking at the intersection but to her left, testified that she saw the Merritt automobile approach the southbound lanes, slow down as if it were going to stop, and then, suddenly realizing that it might not stop, called the attention of her son to it. She further testified that although the defendant was looking at them, he 'just kept on coming.' There was no real conflict in the testimony of the trooper and the parties to the litigation as to how the accident happened.

The proceedings at the trial of this case make it a very unusual one. At the close of the plaintiffs' case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict in his favor as to both plaintiffs. As to the operator of the Darden automobile, the defendant's motion was based on the theory that the defendant had the right of way, that he, the defendant, was free of all negligence and that even if he were negligent, the plaintiff-operator was guilty of contributory negligence. As to the owner, the motion was based on the theory that the negligence of the operator was imputable to the owner. The motion was overruled, but was renewed at the close of all the evidence, and was again denied. There were no motions, either for directed verdicts or otherwise, on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The trial judge, in his instructions, advised the jury generally with respect to primary and contributory negligence and as to the respective burdens of proof, as well as the purpose of the 'stop' and 'yield' signs, and undertook to instruct the jury further to the effect that the operator of a motor vehicle on a favored highway has the right to assume that all traffic attempting to cross it will obey the law, and that the operator of a motor vehicle on an unfavored highway, after obeying the law (presumably as to stopping and yielding), has a right to assume that an operator of a motor vehicle on a favored highway will not negligently collide with the unfavored driver once he has complied with the 'prerequisite preliminary' requirements of the law. He further instructed the jury as to the law of agency and in so doing advised the jury, on the one hand, that if it found the plaintiff-operator was the agent of the plaintiff-owner (and was guilty of negligence), then his negligence would be chargeable to her, but, on the other hand, if it found that said operator was not acting as the agent of the owner and that she was merely a passenger in the automobile along with him, then in that situation (if the defendant was guilty of primary negligence), the negligence of the plaintiff-operator could not be imputed to the plaintiff-owner.

At the conference between counsel and the court before the instructions were given to the jury, counsel for the plaintiffs, having submitted written prayers, sought, and vigorously contended for, an instruction to the effect that the plaintiff-operator had the right of way and therefore the right to assume that all vehicles approaching the intersection would yield the right of way to which he was entitled. As we have just stated the court did inform the jury that the operator of the motor vehicle on the favored highway had a right to assume that all traffic attempting to cross it would obey the law, but the court did not advise the...