Tutewiler v. Shannon

• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DRIVER, Justice.
• Citation: Tutewiler v. Shannon, 111 P.2d 215, 8 Wn.2d 23 (Wash. 1941)
• Decision Date: 11 March 1941
• Docket Number: 28213.
• Parties: TUTEWILER et al. v. SHANNON et ux.

111 P.2d 215

8 Wn.2d 23

TUTEWILER et al. v. SHANNON et ux.

No. 28213.

Supreme Court of Washington

March 11, 1941

Department 1.

Action by A. N. Tutewiler and others against George E. Shannon and Jane Doe Shannon, husband and wife, for personal injuries and automobile damages growing out of a collision between two automobiles. From a judgment for the plaintiffs, the defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Superior Court, Spokane County; C. W Greenough, judge.

Smith Troy, John E. Belcher, and Oliver Malm, all of Olympia, for appellants.

Snively & Bounds and Owen Clarke, all of Yakima, for respondents.

DRIVER Justice.

This action for personal injuries and car damages grew out of a collision between two automobiles. A trial to the court without a jury resulted in findings and judgment for the plaintiffs, from which the defendants have appealed.

The collision occurred at about 1:30 p. m., on a mid-winter day at a point on the Snoqualmie Pass highway approximately one-fourth of a mile east of the summit. The highway extends in a general easterly direction from the summit on a grade of one and a half to two percent, and, at the time in question was sixty feet wide between perpendicular snow banks, ten or twelve feet high, cut out by the action of snow plows. The entire surface was covered with packed-down snow, which was very icy and slippery. A light shower of rain and sleet was falling. Several hundred feet east of the place of collision the highway narrowed abruptly from four traffic lanes to two lanes. Beginning at that point and extending back up the highway toward the summit, there was a ridge of snow about eighteen inches high and two or three feet wide at the base, which had been pushed up by the scraper blade of a snow plow and had not yet been removed. This ridge ran parallel to the snow bank on the northerly side of the highway and, according to various estimates of the witnesses, was from eight to fifteen feet distant therefrom.

At the time of the accident, respondent A. N. Tutewiler was traveling from Seattle toward Yakima. He was driving a car which belonged to his son, respondent Walter Tutewiler, who did not accompany him on the trip. The other respondent, James Tutewiler, also a son of A. N. Tutewiler, was riding with him in the car.

Appellant George W. Shannon (who will hereafter be referred to as if he were the only appellant), a parole officer of the state training school for boys, was traveling westward toward Chehalis, driving a stateowned automobile, in which he had five boys. The collision occurred when the state car skidded across the highway to its southerly side (appellant's left hand side) and struck respondents' automobile, which was proceeding in the opposite direction and had at all times been well on its own proper side of the road.

The record presents the usual conflict in the testimony as to the rates of speed of the automobiles involved and the manner in which the accident occurred.

Appellant testified that he was driving at a speed of only twenty miles an hour and had his car well under control when he tried to cross over the ridge of snow on his right to enable a motor bus, which had been following him, to pass by; that his right front wheel crossed over the ridge, but he could not get the other wheels across, although he 'put it in second gear' in his effort to do so; and that, after traveling along the ridge for about fifty feet, his car suddenly 'shot out across the yellow line' and struck respondents' automobile at an angle of forty-five degrees from the front.

Appellant's testimony was generally supported, with some discrepancies, which we shall not relate in detail, by two of the boys who were riding with him in the state car and also by the driver of the passenger bus. The driver, a disinterested witness, testified that he had approached the place of the accident with his bus 'in third gear'; that it was equipped with a governor which would not permit it to go more than thirty-four miles an hour in that gear; and that he had gained upon the appellant's car, and estimated that it had been going about twenty-five miles an hour just Before the collision.

Respondent A. N. Tutewiler, testified, in effect, as follows: He had been driving along at twenty miles an hour, within about eight feet of the snow bank on his right, when he saw the other car approaching six hundred to seven hundred feet away. It had swerved across the middle of the highway to his (southerly) side, then back almost to the snow bank on the other (northerly) side; then it had kept 'wiggling,' and he thought it had passed him, but it skidded around and across the highway at a forty-five degree angle from the rear, and struck his car a little behind the left-front wheel. He estimated that the state car had been traveling sixty miles an hour.

This respondent's version of the accident was substantially corroborated by the testimony of respondent James Tutewiler.

Appellant's assignments of error present only these two questions:

1. Was appellant guilty of any negligence which was a proximate cause of the accident?

2. Was there any contributory negligence on the part of the driver of the Tutewiler car which precludes recovery by the respondents?

With reference to the first question, the parties seem to be in agreement as to the applicable law. The mere skidding of an automobile is not such an unusual or uncommon occurrence as to constitute evidence of negligence in the operation of the vehicle. Osborne v. Charbneau, 148 Wash. 359, 268 P. 884, 64 A.L.R. 251; Cartwright v. Boyce, 167 Wash. 175, 8 P.2d 968.

However, the driver of a car will be liable for the consequence of its skidding if such skidding is due to any negligent act or omission on his part; and, where a car skids across the center line to its left-hand side of the highway and there collides with another vehicle, the burden is upon the driver on the wrong side of the road to show that he got there through no fault of his own. Martin v. Bear, 167 Wash. 327, 9 P.2d 365; Haines v. Pinney, 171 Wash. 568, 18 P.2d 496; Thomas v. Adams, 174 Wash. 118, 24 P.2d 432; Weaver v. Windust, 195 Wash. 240, 80 P.2d 766.

The question under consideration may, then, be further narrowed to this: Was the skidding of appellant's automobile caused by his own negligence? Appellant contends that it was not, as he lost control of the car because he tried to cross the snow ridge to let the bus pass by, a proper thing for him to do.

The testimony of appellant and his witnesses, in support of this contention, is rather vague and somewhat contradictory. Appellant, on direct examination, stated:

'A. Well, the furrow of snow blocked my getting into the other lane. Ordinarily, when they widen out to the other lane a car gets over on that other lane and permits the other cars to pass if they want to, which the stage was apparently trying to do.

'Q. You knew that the stage was behind you? A. Yes, sir.' (italics ours.)

One of the occupants of appellant's car also testified: 'A. Well, we were starting--We just came out of this narrow stretch and we started this car up, kept going, and there was a bus coming behind us and another car going up that way and there wasn't too much room there, and Mr. Shannon started to go over this ridge of snow and when he started to go over he started to slide and hit this fellow.'

The bus driver, on direct examination, testified as follows regarding this same incident:

'A. Well, there was nothing happening until he [appellant] struck this snow bank, this ridge of snow.

'Q. Then what happened? A. He started across. I don't know whether he started to cross so I could get by him or not, but I was right behind him and could have went by him if----

'The Court: Q. You mean, he started to cross it to the right? A. Yes, * * *.' (Italics ours.)

However, the same witness testified on cross-examination:

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