Peasley v. White

• Decision Date: 09 December 1930
• Parties: PEASLEY v. WHITE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

152 A. 530

PEASLEY

v. WHITE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 9, 1930.

The evidence established that car, at time fog was encountered, was proceeding on right-hand side of road and within speed limit prescribed by law, and that passenger after fog was encountered had no opportunity to control situation before car was off road, so that added warning from him would not have averted accident.

On Motion from Superior Court, Penobscot County.

Action by Carl L. Peasley against Nelson George White. On motion for new trial after verdict for defendant.

Motion granted, and new trial ordered.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, FARRINGTON, and THAXTER, JJ.

Clinton C. Stevens, of Bangor, for plaintiff.

Merrill & Merrill and W. F. Merrill, all of Skowhegan, for defendant.

STURGIS, J.

This is an action of negligence brought by the plaintiff against the driver of an automobile in which he was riding as a gratuitous passenger. The verdict was for the defendant, and the plaintiff files a general motion for a new trial.

Late Sunday afternoon, September 22, 1929, the plaintiff accepted an invitation for himself, his wife and infant daughter, to accompany the defendant and his wife and a Mr. and Mrs. Willet on an automobile ride from Pittsfield to Waterville. The party arrived safely at their destination, took supper at a local restaurant, and about 9:30 in the evening started back towards Pittsfield.

The defendant was driving a large Hupmobile Eight. The night was generally clear, but land fogs lay in the low places, and, as the car came to Mudgett's curve, so-called, near Burnham Junction, the defendant drove into a heavy fog, obscuring his view of the road, and, without slackening his speed of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, rode on into the curve. In fifty feet of travel, he found his car across the road with its left wheels out on the gravel shoulder. He still kept up his speed, applied no brakes, but tried to pull back on to the hard surface of the way. Hitting a rock fill, the car turned over, and the plaintiff was seriously Injured.

The defendant seeks excuse for getting off the road, in the misleading location of telephone poles, which did not parallel the curve of the road, but ran straight ahead at one side. He admits, however, that he does not "regard them a very safe line to follow." He insists that his judgment dictated that an attempt to pull back into the road and a continuance of his speed was safer than an application of brakes while riding the shoulder with his left wheels. His attention being directed to his travel in the blinding fog along and across the hard road before he struck the shoulder, he gives as his reason for not then reducing his speed: "Thought I was all right." One further fact should be noted. Just before the defendant drove into the fog at Mudgett's curve, he passed a west-bound automobile, and, practically blinded by its headlights, almost instantaneously rode out of this glare into the fog.

The statement of facts just made conforms in all essential details with the story told by the defendant on the stand. The testimony of other witnesses adds nothing of probative value upon the issue of the defendant's negligence.

The driver of an automobile, encountering a fog, is not bound as a matter of law to stop and wait for the fog to lift in order to escape the charge of negligence. It is common knowledge that the fogs from the sea and of the inland are usually...