Richmond Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Brown, 5468

• Decision Date: 03 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 5468,5468
• Citation: 203 Va. 950,128 S.E.2d 267
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: RICHMOND GREYHOUND LINES, INC. v. FRANCIS G. BROWN. Record

Page 267

128 S.E.2d 267

203 Va. 950

RICHMOND GREYHOUND LINES, INC. v. FRANCIS G. BROWN.

Record No. 5468.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia

December 3, 1962.

R. Harvey Chappell, Jr. (Alexander Wellford; Christian, Barton, Raker, Epps & Brent, on brief), for the plaintiff in error.

Dabney Overton, Sr. and Dabney Overton, Jr. (Overton & Overton, on brief), for the defendant in error.

JUDGE: I'ANSON

I'ANSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This action was instituted by the plaintiff, Francis G. Brown, to recover for personal injuries and property damages sustained when his automobile collided with the rear of a bus owned by the defendant, Richmond Greyhound Lines, Incorporated, which he alleged was negligently and unlawfully stopped on the highway by the defendant's driver. A jury trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff on his motion for judgment, and against the defendant on its counterclaim for property damages, upon which judgment was entered by the trial court, and the defendant is here on a writ of error.

The defendant having conceded in oral argument that it was negligent in stopping the bus partly on the highway, the sole question presented by its assignments of error is: Was the plaintiff contributorily negligent as a matter of law, and thereby precluded from recovery in this case?

The evidence, stated in the light most favorable to the plaintiff under familiar principles, shows that the accident occurred between 5:30 and 5:45 P.M. on the evening of December 19, 1959, on a long, gradual curve on U.S. Route 17 when the plaintiff, while proceeding south toward Tappahannock, Virginia, drove his automobile into the rear of a southbound Greyhound bus that had stopped, partly on the shoulder of the highway with about 3 1/2 feet remaining on the hard surface, to discharge a passenger. The night was clear and the stars were shining. The hard surface of the highway was 20 feet wide, level and dry, and the speed limit was 55 miles per hour. There was no other traffic on the highway near the scene of the accident at the time. On the left side of the highway going toward Tappahannock there was a gift shop, formerly operated as a gasoline filling station, which was 50 feet from the highway and directly across the road from where the bus had stopped. Colored Christmas lights were burning under its canopy and two lines of white lights extended from the corners of the building to a post near the highway.

A map drawn to scale showing the curve of the highway and several photographs of the curve, the open field within its arc, conditions at the scene of the collision, and the plaintiff's badly damaged automobile were presented in evidence as exhibits.

The bus was 9 feet 6 inches high, 7 feet 10 inches wide, and 34 feet long. There were seven red running lights on the rear of the bus: two at the top, three in the center, and two at the bottom; plus two reflectors and the signal lights at the bottom. All of the running lights were burning at the time of the accident and continued to burn afterwards except two which were broken as a result of the collision.

The plaintiff lived two-tenths of a mile from the scene of the accident and was familiar with the highway. He testified that while traveling at a speed of about 50 to 55 miles per hour he noticed the lights on the gift shop but did not realize that a bus was stopped on the highway. He stated that he was confused by the lights, and that 'I didn't know whether anything was sitting there at first or not. I didn't know what it was. ' When he was about 200 feet from the rear of the bus his headlights hit upon it, and realizing for the first time that a bus was stopped there partly on the road he applied his brakes and drove onto the soft shoulder of the highway intending to pass on the right of the bus. Then, realizing that someone might be entering or leaving the bus on that side, he cut back on the highway to go around it on the left. It was then that his car struck the left rear of the bus at an angle. He claimed that there were several cedar trees beyond the rear of the bus and a fencerow of honeysuckle four or five feet high which obstructed his view across the arc of the curve.

Soon after the accident a state trooper arrived on the scene and made an investigation. He found light skid marks made by the plaintiff's automobile beginning on the hard surface 189 feet from the rear of the bus and extending two or three feet to the shoulder, and then gouge marks running down the soft, wet shoulder to a point where the plaintiff apparently cut back onto the highway and struck the bus. He stated that although there was a gradual curve in the road there was a clear and unobstructed view down the highway for a distance of 410 feet from the direction in which the plaintiff was traveling to the place where the bus was stopped, and from the distance of 410 feet the lights on the bus could have been clearly distinguished from those of the gift shop. The next day he made an examination of the area and testified that on the inside of the gradual curve where the bus had stopped there was an open field affording the plaintiff a vision of three-tenths of a mile to where the accident occurred.

The defendant's driver testified that when he brought the bus to a stop a passenger immediately alighted and just as the bus began...