Van Jura v. Row, s. 37613

• Citation: 191 N.E.2d 536,175 Ohio St. 41
• Decision Date: 19 June 1963
• Docket Number: 37631,Nos. 37613,s. 37613
• Parties: , 23 O.O.2d 344 VAN JURA, a Minor, Appellee, v. ROW, Appellant, et al. VAN JURA, a Minor, Appellee, v. ROW, Bires, a Minor, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio

Page 41

175 Ohio St. 41

191 N.E.2d 536, 23 O.O.2d 344

VAN JURA, a Minor, Appellee, v. ROW, Appellant, et al.

VAN JURA, a Minor, Appellee, v. ROW, Bires, a Minor, Appellant.

Nos. 37613, 37631.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

June 19, 1963.

Syllabus by the Court

1. One who seeks to make a left turn, in the face of traffic coming from the opposite direction, cannot absolve himself from the obligation to proceed with due care by claiming that he depended upon a signal of a motorist going in the opposite direction, who stopped to allow the one making a left turn to pass in front of him.

2. A motorist about to make a left turn, who is given a signal to pass in front of a stopped vehicle going in the opposite direction, and who, being unable to see whether any other vehicle is also going in the opposite direction, attempts to complete his left turn without exercising due care, and collides with another vehicle having a lawful right to proceed, is guilty of negligence as a matter of law.

3. An instruction to the jury that it may find the sole proximate cause of an accident to be the act of a truck driver who, having a right to proceed, nevertheless stopped and motioned a left-turning motorist to pass in front of him, is prejudicial and erroneous.

These two cases arise from the same motor vehicle collision in the city of Youngstown, Mahoning County.

In case No. 37613, John M. Row is the appellant. In case No. 37631, Ronald M. Bires, a minor, is the appellant.

On November 5, 1957, Row was driving his automobile south one Wick Avenue in the city of Youngstown, intending to go to the Wickwood Restaurant for his breakfast. This restaurant is located on the east side of Wick Avenue, in about the center of the block. Wick Avenue, in this location, has two lanes for southbound traffic and three lanes for northbound traffic. Row approached the location of the Wickwood Restaurant in the inside southbound lane, indicating his intention to turn to the left across the northbound lanes by his turnsignal light. There was no traffic in the northbound lane nearest Row, and his ability to see the northbound curb lane was abscured by a large truck in the center northbound lane.

Traffic in the northbound side of Wick Avenue was halted by a red light at Rayen Avenue, the next street north of the Wickwood Restaurant. The operator of the truck stopped his motor vehicle just south of where Row was waiting to turn into the Wickwood Restaurant, and motioned for Row to proceed, which he did, although he was not able to see what, if anything, was proceeding in the northbound curb lane. In the northbound curb lane Bires was proceeding north, driving his automobile with five high-school girls as passengers, four of whom paid him a weekly fee for their transportation to high school. Among these paying passengers was the plaintiff, Andrea Van Jura, a minor, appellee herein, who claimed she was injured as a result of the collision between the Bires automobile and the Row automobile.

The driver of the truck is not a party to this action, and, in fact, his identity is not known.

At the conclusion of the action brought by the father, as next friend of the plaintiff, the trial judge instructed the jury, before the oral argument, as follows:

'The court says to you that if you find from the evidence in this case that the sole, real and proximate cause of this accident was negligence of the unidentified truck driver in motioning the defendant, Mr. Row, to make a left turn, then your verdict in this case must be in favor of the defendants.'

In the general charge to the jury, the trial judge said further as follows:

'The defendants also claim, by virtue of the evidence which has been submitted at the trial, and offered at the trial, that the truck driver was negligent, and the defendants Row and Bires say that it was the truck driver's negligence which solely and proximately caused the injury to the plaintiff, the unidentified truck driver. * * *'

Judgment was rendered on a jury verdict for the defendants, appellants herein. An appeal was then lodged in the Court of Appeals for Mahoning County, which court, finding the charges to the jury as set out above to be prejudicial and erroneous, reversed that judgment and remanded the cause to the Court of Common Pleas for a new trial.

A motion to certify the record to this court was allowed in each case.

Reuben Segall, Youngstown, for appellee.

William E. Pfau and William E. Pfau, Jr., Youngstown, for appellant in case No. 37613.

Stephens, Stephens & Wilkes, Youngstown, for appellant in case No. 37631.

HUNSICKER, Judge.

The situation which confronted Row, as he was waiting to make his left turn across the three-lane northbound portion of a heavily traveled highway, is one that occurs to motorists every day. Can one who is waiting to make a left turn depend upon the action of another motorist and absolve himself from liability for injury committed upon a party, by showing that he was invited to proceed in his left turn by such other motorist, who, at that time, had the right to proceed uninterruptedly in the direction in which he was headed?

A search of the reported cases in Ohio does not disclose that the fact situation herein has come before the courts of this state. Our attention has been called by counsel herein to the following cases from other jurisdictions: Devine v. Cook (1955), 3 Utah 2d 134, 279 P.2d 1073; Sweet v....