Blackburn v. Cooner

509 S.W.2d 641, 1974 Tex. App. LEXIS 2323
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 29, 1974
DocketNo. 8415
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 509 S.W.2d 641 (Blackburn v. Cooner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blackburn v. Cooner, 509 S.W.2d 641, 1974 Tex. App. LEXIS 2323 (Tex. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

ROBINSON, Justice.

This is a suit for damages resulting from an automobile accident. Based on the jury’s findings of contributory negligence, a take-nothing judgment was rendered against the plaintiffs. Reversed and remanded.

Miss Bobbie Jan Blackburn and Troy Blackburn, individually and as next friend for Miss Blackburn, sued B. C. Cooner for personal injury and property damage sustained when her car overturned as she was attempting to avoid a collision with defendant Cooner’s pickup when he drove it across the highway in the path of her oncoming car. Trial was to a jury. In response to special issues, the jury found that Cooner committed various acts of negligence and that such acts were, each, a proximate cause of the accident. The jury also found, in answers to the special issues numbered as follows: that Miss Blackburn (4a) failed to keep a proper lookout, which (4b) was a proximate cause of the accident, (6a) drove at an excessive rate of speed, under the circumstances, which (6b) was a proximate cause of the accident and (7a) suffered no damage for pain and suffering.

By no evidence and insufficient evidence points of error, appellants challenge the evidentiary support for the jury’s findings regarding contributory negligence, as well as the finding that Miss Blackburn sustained no damage for pain and suffering as a result of the accident.

Plaintiff, Bobbie Jan Blackburn, testified that she was going east on Highway 70 at approximately 65 m. p. h. in a 70 m. p. h. zone. As she topped a rise she saw two pickup-trucks parked on the right side of the road less than a quarter of a mile away. She saw one pickup pull up on the edge of the highway and she applied her brakes and started to slow down. The pickup hesitated for a moment. She had just removed her foot from the brake when the pickup pulled on out in front of her broadside in the highway. She slammed on her brakes and turned the wheel to the right as hard as she could, succeeding in barely missing the pickup by going between it and the other pickup at the side of the road. Her vehicle overturned when it hit the gravel.

The testimony of O. B. Whitford, who observed the occurrence from the south side of the highway, is consistent with Miss Blackburn’s testimony. He said,

“A. Well, Mr. Cooner pulled up on to the highway, and this car was coming, and I thought that if he kept continuing why that there was going to be a wreck, but just as he got up on the highway, he just kind of hesitated. I won’t say he stopped, but he just kind of hesitated as if he was going to stop, in my estimation. And by that time this car had decided that he was going to stop, or it looked to me like that is what, and he just pulled on over and the car went behind him.
“Of course, by that time, the car was traveling sideways, and it just turned over, and then he pulled over across the highway, across the blacktop, and stopped.”

Mr. Whitford testified that he could not estimate the speed of Miss Blackburn’s vehicle, but in answer to question by defendant’s counsel, he testified as follows:

“Q. She was going too fast, wasn’t she?
[643]*643“A. Well, I wouldn’t say she was going too fast. The vehicles were just too close together.
“Q. You wouldn’t say she wasn’t going too fast either, would you ?
“A. Well, I didn’t think she was traveling any faster than any other car that would have been coming by there in the same circumstances.
“Q. And the speedlimit was seventy?
“A. It is seventy miles an hour.”

Buford Price, who was in the pickup beside the road at the time of the occurrence, testified that Cooner backed up his pickup to clear Price’s vehicle and drove directly through a sloping area on the roadside up onto the highway. He testified:

“A. Well, Mr. Cooner, I directed him to Mr. Whitford, pointed him out to him, and I got back in my pickup and sat there, and he pulled across the road there, pulled up on the road, actually, and stopped dead stiU, but he was already part way on toat road and part way off of it. And I looked back over my shoulder and seen a car coming, didn’t know who it was, or anything.
“And this — -from there on, he fogged it on across the road, and naturally, I would have, too.
“Q. All right.
“A. And this accident happened. Now, that is just the way I seen it. It happened.
“And I don’t know how — or where she was from, where she seen him, or anything about it, or whoever was driving the car at that time, I didn’t know.
“But it triggered that accident.
“Q. His crossing the road at the time?
“A. Yes, sir.”

Mr. Price testified that he could not estimate the speed of Miss Blackburn’s vehicle, but in response to questions by defendant’s counsel, testified:

“Q. Did it appear to you she she (sic) was moving pretty fast ?
“A. Well, no. No faster than the average car goes.”

The defendant, B. C. Cooner, testified that he was 74 years old at the time of the accident and 76 years old at the time of the trial. According to Mr. Cooner, when his back wheels were in the low part of the barditch and his front wheels at the edge of the shoulder of the road, not the blacktop, he looked east and to the west. He also testified as follows:

“A. Well, when I looked east, I didn’t see any car or vehicle of any kind coming west; and at first I didn’t see any car coming up the hill from the west going east, but as I started my pickup to rolling north, had it in gear and was feeding it a little gas, I saw the top of this car, just a little white line, on top of the hard road surface, and I speeded up as fast as I could, gave the pickup all the gas it would take, and drove straight north across the pavement, and off of the pavement, and turned east after I got off of what they call the shoulder of the highway, which is just packed gravel and not the blacktop.
“And before I stopped my pickup, I turned my head to the right to see what kind of vehicle was going to pass me, and I didn’t see any, and I looked a little further around, and I saw this car up in the air. I could see underneath it. And I would judge it was about a foot and a half, the top of it, off of the ground.”

Mr. Cooner testified that the crest of the hill was about 1600 feet from where he crossed the road and that he had, by re-enacting the occurrence, clocked the time he took to cross the road and that it took 5 seconds. If Mr. Cooner is correct and if Miss Blackburn did traverse 1600 feet in 5 seconds, she was driving her 1966 six-cylinder Ford Falcon at 218 miles per hour.

[644]*644There is considerable variation in the testimony of different witnesses concerning the distance from the crest of the hill to the scene'of the accident. Two witnesses testified that it was about 200 yards.

In weighing such testimony, the jury may accept all, part or none of the testimony of any one witness, or it may accept part of one witness’ testimony and part of another’s. Knight v.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Texas Brine Corp. v. Lofton
698 S.W.2d 691 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1985)
Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Williams
516 S.W.2d 425 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
509 S.W.2d 641, 1974 Tex. App. LEXIS 2323, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blackburn-v-cooner-texapp-1974.