Anderson v. Strack

17 N.W.2d 719, 236 Iowa 1, 1945 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMarch 6, 1945
DocketNo. 46644.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 17 N.W.2d 719 (Anderson v. Strack) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anderson v. Strack, 17 N.W.2d 719, 236 Iowa 1, 1945 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420 (iowa 1945).

Opinion

Oliver, J.

September 28, 1943, Harold F. Bauman was driving a moving van west on U. S. Highway No. 30 in Greene County, Iowa. The paved slab was eighteen feet wide, was straight, and was practically level. The day was clear. The cab of the van was occupied by members of the Bauman family, *3 including Barbara Jean Bauman, aged six years. Several hundred feet ahead of the Bauman van an automobile owned and operated by defendant, Emma W. Strack, was also proceeding west on said highway, en route to a cemetery a few hundred feet to the west and on the north side of the highway. Each driver was aware of the presence of the other vehicle. On the south side of the highway, opposite the cemetery, was a farmhouse and yard. The driveway from the cemetery was paved, was thirty-one and one-half feet wide at the place where it intersected the . pavement on Highway 30, and narrowed to a width of eight feet at the cemetery gate. A short distance to the west was a driveway to the farmyard on the south. During the time her automobile was traveling the last three hundred feet to the intersection of the cemetery driveway defendant, Strack, continuously extended her hand and arm from the left of her automobile.

Although the evidence was in conflict the jury could have found her hand and arm were extended horizontally, thus signaling her intention to turn to the left; that she also turned her automobile from the right lane of the pavement to the left or south lane of the pavement; that the van continued to travel on the north lane; that when the.automobile reached a place opposite the cemetery entrance defendant, without warning signal, turned the same abruptly to the right across the north lane of travel and immediately in front of the van, which was traveling thereon at a speed of about fifteen miles per hour; that, although the brakes of the van were immediately applied, • it could not be stopped, struck the side of defendant’s automobile and went into the ditch at the north side of the pavement. Barbara Jean was thrown from the cab and received injuries which caused her death.

This action, brought by the administratrix of the estate of Barbara Jean Bauman, is in three counts. Count 1 is for the damage to said estate from Barbara Jean’s death. Count 2 is for damage to Mr. Bauman for loss of her services during minority and for expenses incurred by him for her hospital bills and nurses’ and physicians’ services. Count 3 is for damage to the moving van. The claims upon which counts 2 and 3 were based had been assigned by Mr. Bauman to plaintiff. Trial to a *4 jury resulted in judgment for plaintiff and this appeal by defendant.

I. Appellant contends the evidence fails to show any negligence on her part which proximately caused the accident and damage, and that the court should have sustained her motion for directed verdict. We think the evidence was sufficient to warrant submitting this question to the jury.

Section 5025.04, Code of Iowa, 1939, provides in part that no person shall turn a vehicle from a direct course upon a highway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety, and then only after giving an appropriate signal, if any other vehicle maj^ be affected by such movement. Under. Code sections 5025.07 and 5025.08, the hand and arm extended horizontally is interpreted as a signal for a left turn and the hand and arm extended upward as a signal for a right turn. There was substantial evidence that appellant failed to comply with the foregoing statutes.

Under a record somewhat similar to this, we held, in Miller v. Lowe, 220 Iowa 105, 261 N. W. 822, that the question of defendant’s negligence in failing to comply with the requirements of the statute then in effect was for the jury. This holding was followed in Harmon v. Gilligan, 221 Iowa. 605, 266 N. W. 288. Harrington v. Fortman, 233 Iowa 92, 8 N. W. 2d 713, also involved a similar factual situation and the consideration of various Code sections, including 5025.07 and 5025.08. We there held evidence of defendant’s failure to give proper, signals required the submission of the ease to the jury under appropriate instructions.

There was also evidence that appellant made the approach to the right turn into the cemetery driveway from the left side of the pavement. Code section 5025.01 provides that both the approach for a right turn and a right turn of a vehicle at an intersection shall be made as close as practical to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway. We are unable to determine from the record that the driveway to the cemetery was of such character as to make this provision applicable and will assume it was not applicable.

However, the driver of a vehicle is required to exercise reasonable care at all times. If reasonable care requires that such *5 vehicle make the approach for a right turn into a private driveway as close as practical to the right edge of the roadway, the approach should be thus made, irrespective of the question of the applicability of the statute regulating turning at intersections. See Kemmish v. McCoid, 193 Iowa 958, 962, 185 N. W. 628; Withey v. Fowler Co., 164 Iowa 377, 392, 145 N. W. 923. State v. Davidson, 152 Kan. 460, 463, 105 P. 2d 876, 878, points out that safety of persons using the highways was the primary concern of the legislature in adopting the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways, and states:

“It is a matter of common knowledge that the driver of a motor vehicle, intending to make a right-hand turn at an intersection, will, for the protection o*f himself and for others, keep as close as practical to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway. The standard of conduct imposed by the statute is that of a reasonable man under like circumstances. ’ ’

So, in the case at bar, whether appellant drove her automobile on the left side of the pavement in making the approach for a right turn into the cemetery driveway, and whether, under the circumstances shown in the record, such operation was negligent, were questions for the jury.

II. What we have just stated disposes of appellant’s additional contention that appellant had the right to drive on any part of the rural highway when not meeting, passing, or being passed by others, and that the court should have given a requested instruction that she would not be negligent if she drove on the left side. The court did instruct, in substance, that no negligence would be attributable to appellant “from the mere fact standing alone” that she drove in the left lane, but added that whether she was negligent in thus making the approach for a right turn into the cemetery entrance, under the circumstances shown in the record, if the evidence showed she did drive in the left lane, was a question to be determined by the jury, the test 'being whether she exercised ordinary care. The instruction given was correct.

III. Appellant contends also that her motion for directed verdict should have been sustained as to count 1 upon the ground that Mr. Bauman’s negligence was the sole proximate *6 cause of the accident, and as to counts 2 and 3 that Bauman was guilty of contributory negligence.

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Bluebook (online)
17 N.W.2d 719, 236 Iowa 1, 1945 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-strack-iowa-1945.