Croushorn Equipment Co. v. Moore

441 S.W.2d 111, 1969 Ky. LEXIS 286
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMay 9, 1969
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 441 S.W.2d 111 (Croushorn Equipment Co. v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Croushorn Equipment Co. v. Moore, 441 S.W.2d 111, 1969 Ky. LEXIS 286 (Ky. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

DAVIS, Commissioner.

Virginia Ann Moore, appellee, obtained a verdict and judgment for $6,500 against appellant, Croushorn Equipment Company, Inc., and Tunis Bradley and Eugene Bradley, jointly or severally, based upon a motor-vehicle collision which occurred under somewhat unusual circumstances. The Bradleys have not appealed, but Crou-shorn has, urging that (1) a directed verdict in its behalf should have been given because it was free of negligence; (2) the intervening negligence of Eugene Bradley was the sole cause of the accident; and (3) erroneous instructions were given.

The accident occurred on Main Street within the city limits of Harlan. Fred Brassfield was driving a dump truck owned by Croushorn northwardly on Main Street when the truck stalled just after he had passed through a sharp, blind curve to his right. Brassfield said that he alighted from the vehicle and signaled with his hand to direct approaching traffic for about five minutes just after he stopped. He then reentered the truck and undertook to start it without success. Meanwhile, at least three other vehicles traveling northwardly along Main Street and around the curve came upon the stalled truck and were brought to a stop by their respective drivers. The last or southmost vehicle in the line was a van-type truck driven by Ralph Nolan who said that as he came around the curve he saw the vehicles ahead of him and stopped approximately 100 feet behind the disabled truck. Quite shortly after Nolan stopped, he heard the sounds of skidding tires in back of him. These sounds emanated from the automobile being operated by Eugene Bradley.

Bradley said he observed Nolan’s parked van when he was 30 or 40 feet from it and that he suddenly and vigorously applied his brakes. Bradley said that the application of the brakes threw his car into a skid so that the right rear portion of it swung to his right and collided with a concrete re[113]*113taining wall. In turn, the rear of the car was then projected to the left so that it struck the left front portion of the automobile being driven by the plaintiff-appellee, Virginia Ann Moore, who was proceeding southwardly and entirely in her proper traffic lane. Her suit against both appellant Croushorn and the Bradleys was based on her claimed injuries arising from the alleged concurring negligence of Croushorn and the Bradleys.

The appellant strongly urges that it was entirely free of negligence. In support of this contention, appellant cites American Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Patterson, Ky., 243 S.W.2d 472, for the general proposition that the disablement of an automobile does not of itself prove negligence. We may concede the accuracy of that general proposition, but we do not consider that the proposition demonstrates absence of negligence in the present case. It is our view that the general duties of ordinary care require some precautions respecting a stalled vehicle, no matter how nonnegli-gently the stalling may have occurred. So, we do not find it necessary to say that Croushorn was negligent because its truck stalled, but we think the evidence was sufficient to create a submissible jury issue concerning the conduct of Croushorn’s driver after the truck became disabled. See Service Lines, Inc. v. Mitchell, Ky., 419 S.W.2d 525.

Appellant next argues that the accident of which appellee complains was caused solely by the intervening negligence of Eugene Bradley. In support of that position, our attention is called to Michael v. United States of America (CCA 6) 338 F.2d 219; American Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Patterson, Ky., 243 S.W.2d 472; Hines v. Westerfield, Ky., 254 S.W.2d 728; and Pence v. Sprinkles, Ky., 394 S.W.2d 945. Those authorities deal with the application of the doctrine of intervening negligence, and some of them are pitched on the premise that the independent intervening cause interrupts the chain of causation and renders the original negligence so remote as not to be considered a proximate cause. In Armes v. Armes, Ky., 424 S.W.2d 137, we regarded the placing of a stalled truck upon the highway, when accompanied by failure to give adequate warning in the dark, as a proximate cause of an ensuing collision. It is apparent that danger to oncoming traffic is readily foreseeable when one leaves an obstacle in a traveled thoroughfare. In view of the sharp curve through which Brassfield had driven and of which he was fully aware, the danger of leaving the truck in the street was increased. The need for some timely warning was more acute than would have been so had the road been level and straight. We are unwilling to say as a matter of law that the conduct of Bradley, even though found to be negligent conduct by the jury, was a superseding or independent negligence rendering Brassfield’s negligence, if any, a remote rather than a proximate cause of the collision.

In pertinent part Instruction No. II provided :

“The Court instructs the jury that it was the duty of the driver of the defendant, Croushorn Equipment Company, Incorporated’s dump truck, at the time and place referred to in the evidence, not to stop the truck, leave it standing or cause it to stop or to be left standing upon the main traveled portion of the highway. Unless, you believe from the evidence that the Croushorn Equipment Company truck became disabled while traveling on the main traveled portion of said highway, in such a manner and to such extent that it was impossible to avoid the occupation of the main traveled portion, or impracticable to remove it from the highway while awaiting repairs, or sufficient help obtained for its removal, in which latter event he had a right to leave his vehicle standing on the main traveled portion of the highway. Even though you may believe from the evidence that the defendant, Croushorn Equipment [114]*114Company, Inc., had a right to leave his vehicle standing on the main traveled portion of the highway, it was the defendant, Croushorn Equipment Company, Incorporated’s driver’s duty to give adequate notice, or warning, that his vehicle was stalled on the highway, to approaching traffic from the rear, and to give said warning by the use of signs, signals, guards, with the hands, or other practical means, with reasonable promptness, as the circumstances at the time and place demanded.”

A pertinent portion of Instruction No. Ill recited:

“The jury is further instructed that, if you believe from the evidence that Freddie Brassfield, the driver of the defendant, Croushorn Equipment Company, Inc.’s dump truck, knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care, should have known, that the dump truck he was driving, was about to stall on the main traveled portion of the highway, either by running out of gas, or as a result of a mechanical defect, it was the duty of said driver to drive said truck off of the main traveled portion of the highway to a place of safety, if he had a reasonable opportunity and place to do so, before the dump truck came to a stall on said highway.”

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441 S.W.2d 111, 1969 Ky. LEXIS 286, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/croushorn-equipment-co-v-moore-kyctapp-1969.