Newville v. Weller

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa
• Citation: 251 N.W. 21,217 Iowa 1144
• Docket Number: 42194
• Parties: MAUDE M. NEWVILLE, Appellant, v. A. W. WELLER, Appellee
• Decision Date: 21 November 1933

251 N.W. 21

217 Iowa 1144

MAUDE M. NEWVILLE, Appellant,
v.
A. W. WELLER, Appellee

No. 42194

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

November 21, 1933

REHEARING DENIED MARCH 9, 1934.

Appeal from Polk District Court.--F. S. SHANKLAND, Judge.

This action was brought by a guest to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident which resulted from a tire giving way while the car was in motion. The action is brought upon the theory that the defendant, owner of the car, was guilty of recklessness in permitting the driver of the car to operate it at an excessive rate of speed in view of the condition of the tire. At the close of plaintiff's testimony, a motion by defendant for a directed verdict was sustained. Plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Chester J. Eller, for appellant.

Hallagan, Fountain & Stewart, for appellee.

CLAUSSEN, J. ALBERT, C. J., and EVANS, KINDIG, and DONEGAN, JJ., concur.

OPINION

[217 Iowa 1145] CLAUSSEN, J.

The defendant was, at the time under inquiry, the owner of a Dodge sedan. He and all other parties interested in this matter were residents of Des Moines. Early in the morning of June 12, 1932, he and a young lady, [251 N.W. 22] named Dorothy Harvey, and plaintiff and her husband and another party left Des Moines in the defendant's sedan for the purpose of going to Spirit Lake and Lake Okoboji. The road which they took ran through Algona. About twenty miles out of Algona one of the tires gave way and the defendant replaced it with the spare tire. After the tire was changed Dorothy Harvey drove the car and proceeded to Algona, and then drove westward on a paved highway. It appears that the cracks in the paving had been filled with asphalt, and that the excess asphalt produced small humps on the pavement. As the car was driven along the pavement there was some bumping; whether the bumping was due to the small humps of asphalt or to some other cause is not disclosed by the record. This bumping caused some comment, and when about four miles west of Algona the defendant told the driver to stop the car and alighted and looked at the tires. He re-entered the car and told the driver to proceed. About eight miles further on, while traveling at about 55 miles per hour, the tire gave way, the car ran off the road, and plaintiff was seriously injured. The [217 Iowa 1146] record indicates that the spare tire, which was placed in service as above related, had a cut or hole in it, but that an innerliner had been placed in the casing for the purpose of remedying this defect. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the tire blew out through the cut or hole in it; in fact the record indicates no more than that the tire blew out. This action is...