Conklin v. Walsh

193 P.2d 437, 113 Utah 276, 1948 Utah LEXIS 165
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedMay 11, 1948
DocketNo. 7090.
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 193 P.2d 437 (Conklin v. Walsh) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Conklin v. Walsh, 193 P.2d 437, 113 Utah 276, 1948 Utah LEXIS 165 (Utah 1948).

Opinions

LATIMER, Justice.

Appeal from a verdict by the district court in favor of the plaintiff and respondent, and against the defendants and appellants in an action for damages to the plaintiff Conklin’s automobile resulting from a collision with defendant company’s truck. All but $50.00 of the loss suffered by the plaintiff was paid by the Pacific Automobile Insurance Company under the terms of a $50.00 deductible automobile collision insurance policy. On motion of the defendant, the insurance company was made a party plaintiff to the action, it being the real party in interest under its right of subrogation. Asenath S. Conklin, wife of Dr. Conklin, and the driver of his car at the time of the accident, was joined as a party defendant in the cross-complaint. The suit was first tried in the City Court of Salt Lake City, where judgment was rendered in favor of the respondent and against the appellants. Upon appeal to the district court the case was tried before a jury. When both sides had rested, the court directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, Clifford E. Conklin, and against the defendants. In so directing the verdict, the court concluded *278 that both drivers were guilty of negligence, but that Mrs. Conklin was not an agent or servant of her husband the plaintiff, and therefore her negligence was not imputable to him. The two principal questions raised on this appeal are: (1) Did the trial court err in finding that the defendant Robert A. Walsh was negligent as a matter of law? And (2) Did the trial court err in finding that Mrs. Conk-lin was not the agent or servant of her husband in the operation of his automobile?

The collision out of which this action arises occurred March 9, 1946, at about 11 r-001 a. m. in Salt Lake City on South Temple Street where it is intersected by “0” Street from the north and by 10th East Street from the south. South Temple is the arterial highway and is 60 feet wide; “0” Street is 80 feet wide, and 10th East Street is 72 feet wide. The west curb of 10th East is offset three feet to the east from the west curb line of “O” Street. The stop sign for southbound traffic on “0” Street is located 18 feet north of the north curb line of South Temple, and south of the sidewalk. The north side of the sidewalk is 32 feet north of the South Temple curb line. The Conklin residence is situated on the northwest corner of this intersection. Approximately 73 feet back of their house is a garage facing on “0” Street in which the automobile in question was customarily kept.

On the morning of the accident Mrs. Conklin, driving her husband’s car with his permission, was taking their daughter and a neighbor’s child to a dancing lesson. Mrs. Conklin was at first unable to start the car because of a dead battery, and so, called a man from a nearby service station to come and assist. After starting the car, the man from the service station sat in his truck parked north of the Conklin garage, and watched while Mrs. Conklin drove down “0” Street into and across South Temple, where the collision occurred. The evidence was undisputed that she stopped before entering the intersection, but as to the exact point at which she stopped, the evidence is in conflict. She testified at first that she stopped “right at the stop sign” *279 but later admitted that in the city court she testified that she stopped at the sidewalk which is 12 to 14 feet north of the stop sign. Be that as it may, she testified that after stopping and looking both ways, and seeing no traffic coming from either direction, she proceeded across the intersection looking straight ahead, without ever again looking to the left or to the right.

The evidence as to defendant Robert A. Walsh’s operation of the truck was that he was driving east along South Temple at a speed variously estimated at from 30 to 45 mph. According to his testimony, he first saw the Conklin automobile when it was just north of the stop sign approaching the intersection at a speed of 10 to 15 mph, at which time his truck was approximately a quarter of a block west of the intersection. Walsh looked to the right to see if there was any traffic approaching from the south along 10th East Street and did not look again to the north to observe the position and movement of the Conklin automobile until it was about the middle of the intersection. As he described it, “When I looked back, she was almost in front of me.” Upon seeing the Conklin car immediately in front of him or almost so, he turned his vehicle to the right but was unable to avoid the collision.

Appellants argue that even though the court might have found as a matter of law that Robert A. Walsh was negligent in the operation of his truck, the question of whether or not that negligence proximately contributed to the collision should have been submitted to the jury, citing Hess v. Robinson et al., 109 Utah 60, 163 P. 2d 510. In that case the plaintiff, traveling an arterial highway, collided with defendant’s ambulance, which came into the intersection without stopping for the stop sign. The plaintiff admitted that he never saw the ambulance prior to the impact, but this court held that even had the plaintiff looked and seen the ambulance approaching, he might have reasonably concluded that it would stop before entering the intersection; and that therefore there was a question for the jury as to whether the plaintiff’s negligence was a proximate cause of *280 the collision. Appellant seeks to rely on that case for support, pointing out that in the case at bar the defendant Walsh saw the plaintiff’s car approaching the intersection and reasonably concluded that the plaintiff’s driver would stop at the stop sign and wait for him to pass.

The holding in Hess v. Robinson does not sustain the appellants here because of the difference in the facts of the two cases. In the Hess case the vehicle entered the arterial highway from the right of the favored driver. The driver of the car traveling the through street, even though he should have seen the ambulance, which according to the evidence was traveling at some speed between 25 and 50 mph, he could not know it would not stop for the stop sign until the vehicles were so close together that he would' have no chance to avoid the collision. In the case at bar the car entering from the side street came from the left of the driver traveling the arterial highway, and at a speed of only 10 to 15 mph. From a point somewhere between 18 and 32 feet north of the curb line of the through street, to the point of impact which was nearly three-fourths of the way across the through street, plaintiff’s car was continuously visible to the driver traveling the arterial highway. Defendant’s truck driver, knowing there was a car approaching from the north, never again looked in that direction until it was too late to avoid a collision. By his own admission the truck driver travelled at least one quarter of a block without making any further observation of a car which, at the time he first saw it, was much nearer the intersection than was his. He asserts his attention was focused on traffic that might be coming from the south. If, as he claims, he was unable to get a clear view to the south on 10th East Street, there was nothing to prevent him from reducing the speed of his truck so as to permit a reasonable opportunity to observe the approach of cars from other directions.

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Bluebook (online)
193 P.2d 437, 113 Utah 276, 1948 Utah LEXIS 165, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/conklin-v-walsh-utah-1948.