Burry v. Interstate Transit Lines

287 N.W. 66, 136 Neb. 695, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 140
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 18, 1939
DocketNo. 30520
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 287 N.W. 66 (Burry v. Interstate Transit Lines) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burry v. Interstate Transit Lines, 287 N.W. 66, 136 Neb. 695, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 140 (Neb. 1939).

Opinion

Messmore, J.

This is an appeal from a jury verdict rendered in the district court for Hall county, in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant in the sum of $1,436.52, for injuries sustained by the plaintiff and damage to his truck as the result of the negligence of the driver of defendant’s bus in maneuvering his bus to negotiate a turn on a detour road north from the Lincoln highway, running east and west near the westerly edge of the city limits of Cozad.

The plaintiff’s petition sets forth several specific acts of negligence on the part of the driver of defendant’s bus and evidentiary facts which will be covered in the opinion, and prays for damages. Defendant’s answer is a general denial; in addition, alleges contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff; by cross-petition alleges specific acts of negligence on the part of the plaintiff, and prays for damages to the bus and in the loss of its use. Plaintiff’s reply is a general denial; and the answer to the cross-petition of defendant realleges negligence on the part of the driver of the defendant’s bus. The substance of the pleadings of the respective parties referring to negligence will be more fully covered in the opinion as occasion requires.

Defendant, at the close of the plaintiff’s evidence and at the close of all the evidence, moved for a directed verdict. [697]*697The court overruled the motions, and the ruling of the court in this respect is assigned as error; in áddition, the defendant assigns as error that the verdict of the jury is clearly against the weight of the evidence. These two assignments will be considered together and require a review and an analysis of the evidence. The accident is admitted. The record discloses the following facts:

On the night of May 8, and the early morning of May 9, 1933, the plaintiff, one Charles Sherlock and a' hitch-hiker, riding with them, were proceeding in an easterly direction en route to Grand Island with a load of live stock, in plaintiff’s 1929 G.M.C. semi-trailer model truck. After they had passed about 12 miles beyond North Platte, Charles Sheriock took over the driving of the truck. The plaintiff was seated at his right and had dozed off to sleep. The hitch-hiker was sitting on the extreme right of the driver. At a distance of about a mile or two from the westerly edge of the city limits of Cozad, the defendant’s bus passed the truck. The speed of the truck was approximately 30- miles an hour, and the speed of the bus was fixed at 55 miles an hour. Both the truck and the bus at the time were proceeding in an easterly direction. Upon arriving at the westerly edge of Cozad and crossing a small bridge, a graveled road just east of the bridge constituted a detour. This road runs to the north. The turn onto the north road was at a sharp or acute angle, a little narrower than a right angle, and, in order to negotiate the turn onto the north road, it was necessary for the bus driver, owing to the length and size of the bus, with a capacity of 33 passengers, A.C.S., — at the time containing 31 passengers, — to maneuver the bus.

The driver’s handling of the bus to negotiate the turn to the north, concisely stated, follows: The bus had reached the point in question about 3 a. m.; the driver pulled up into the intersection, and, not being able to make the turn, had to pull up a little farther, with the front wheels east of the intersection. There was a barrel just north of the black line and about 40 feet east of the east side of the bridge, and the front wheels of the bus were even with the barrel. The [698]*698rear end of the bus was in the intersection. The driver then cramped the wheel to the right again and “backed up so that the front wheels of the bus were about to drop off the pavement, and turning to the left again,” he started up, hardly moving, as the bus was in low gear. The bus “had about reached the black line with the front wheels” at the time of the impact and was stopped. (The bus driver was evidently referring to the black line designating the center of the paved highway running east and west.) The front wheels of the bus occupied a position to the south of the black line on the pavement and to the east of what would be the black line on the road north and south. The front wheels of the bus were never off. the pavement. The bus driver, in backing the bus, was busily engaged in handling the bus and did not look to the west. He was maneuvering the bus in the intersection for a period of two or three minutes. He should have looked to the west; he had just previously passed the truck a mile or two west. When he did look to the west the truck was a distance of from 25 to 75 feet west of the bus. The right front wheel of the truck struck the left front wheel of the bus at about the hub of the wheel. The front end of the bus slid around 6 to 10 feet to the east. The tire marks on the pavement caused by the sliding of the front wheel of the bus indicate the distance that the bus slid to the east, where it was standing at the point of impact. The left front wheel of the bus at the time of the impact was from 20 to 25 feet from the east line or edge of the bridge. The truck came to a stop after the impact in the ditch at the northeast corner of the intersection, about 45 feet distant from the front of the bus. The estimated length of the truck was 30 feet. The position of the bus after the impact, as testified to by other witnesses, follows:

John Dietz, a bus driver, westbound, having come over the north detour, stated that the truck was off the highway and the bus was partly on the pavement, headed north. There was room enough for him to get around or drive through between the point west of the black mark, caused [699]*699by the sliding of the front wheels of the bus, and the end of the road on the west, with two feet to spare. One Davis, testified that he was present at the place where the accident occurred about 8 o’clock in the morning. He took several pictures of the intersection from different directions and at different angles, the pictures appearing in the record as exhibits and used quite extensively in the trial to indicate the location of the bus, by demonstrating the position of individuals appearing in the pictures as corresponding to the position of the bus, all of which had the effect of sustaining the bus driver’s version of the accident. In some of the pictures were white streaks, indicating the lane of travel to the north road after crossing the bridge and turning off the pavement. One witness testified that from the point of the black streak where the tires on the front of the bus slid to the east, to the white streak, indicating the lane of travel to the north road, the distance was 15 feet; that is, 15 feet east of where the lane of travel to the north road turns off the highway. All of the evidence offered by defendant is an attempt to definitely fix the position of the bus in the intersection before and at the time of the impact; that is, far enough east of the east line of the bridge or where the detour road turns to the north and far enough removed from the turn on the north road and from the north side of the pavement running east and west; that is, the front wheels of the bus resting about on the black line of the pavement, marking the center thereof.

The version of the plaintiff and his witnesses of the accident may be briefly summarized as follows: The driver of plaintiff’s truck testified that the bus had come off the side road south upon the paving running east and west. The front of the bus was headed north.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
287 N.W. 66, 136 Neb. 695, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 140, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burry-v-interstate-transit-lines-neb-1939.