Dial v. Seven-Up Bottling Co.

373 S.W.2d 53, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 611
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 9, 1963
DocketNo. 49982
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 373 S.W.2d 53 (Dial v. Seven-Up Bottling Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dial v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 373 S.W.2d 53, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 611 (Mo. 1963).

Opinion

HYDE, Judge.

Action for $75,000.00 damages for personal injuries sustained in an intersection collision between plaintiff’s car and defendant’s truck. The jury found for defendant but the trial court sustained plaintiff’s motion for new trial and defendant has appealed.

Plaintiff submitted on primary negligence (Instruction 3) of defendant’s truck entering the intersection against a red traffic control light. Defendant submitted the converse (Instruction 7) that plaintiff entered the intersection when the light was not green in her favor. Defendant also submitted contributory negligence on Instruction 8 as follows:

“The Court instructs the jury that even if you find and believe from the evidence that on the occasion mentioned in evidence plaintiff drove and operated the Buick automobile into the intersection when the traffic light controlling westbound traffic on 19th Street was green, if you also find and believe that immediately prior to or at the time plaintiff entered said intersection plaintiff, by keeping a careful and vigilant lookout, under the circumstances described in evidence, could have seen defendant’s truck traveling southward on Charlotte toward the intersection of 19th and Charlotte and should have known that there was probable danger of a collision between the two vehicles, if so, and if you further find that at the time plaintiff entered said intersection she failed to keep a careful and vigilant lookout, if so, and if you further find that plaintiff thereafter drove and operated her automobile westwardly on 19th Street into the path and in front of defendant’s truck, if so, and if you further find that in failing to keep a careful and vigilant lookout, if so, plaintiff did not exercise the highest degree of care for her own safety and was negligent, if so, and that such negligence, if any, on her part, directly contributed to cause or bring about the collision mentioned in evidence, if you so find, then you are instructed that plaintiff is not entitled to recover in this case and you must return a verdict in favor of defendant, and this is true regardless of whether or not the defendant was also negligent.”

The court’s order granting a new trial was: “Now on this day plaintiff’s Motion for New Trial upon the Ground numbered 4 of said motion, and particularly subpara-graph (e) of said Ground 4 (Jolley, pro ami, v. Lowe, [Mo.] 362 S.W.2d 741, 1. c. 743) is by the Court sustained.”

The subparagraph of the motion for new trial referred to was as follows: “(e) Nowhere in said instruction is submitted the essential issue of plaintiff’s ability to avoid the collision after such time as the jury might have found that in the exercise of the highest degree of care, she should have known of the probable danger of collision.”

Jolley v. Lowe, cited as authority for the order, was a case submitted on humanitarian negligence and we said of the instruction therein (362 S.W.2d 1. c. 743) : “In order to be complete and under[56]*56standable there should have been inserted after the word ‘automobile’ the phrase ‘and thereby have avoided colliding with plaintiff,’ or some similar expression.” This would have made that part of the instruction submit that after the plaintiff had entered the zone of peril “the defendant was unable, in time thereafter, to sound a warning or stop his automobile and thereby have avoided colliding with plaintiff.” However, even with this addition the instruction in the Jol-ley case still had the defect of submitting what the defendant as an individual was able to do, rather than the objective standard the law required. In this case, only primary negligence was being submitted. To make a humanitarian negligence case, in such a situation, it is essential that, after the plaintiff has come into a position of imminent peril, the defendant then has the ability to take action that will prevent a collision. In a primary negligence case, duty to act commences earlier. Therefore, we have uniformly held that to submit on failure to keep a lookout, in addition to stating the degree of care required, it is “sufficient to authorize a verdict if a jury finds that a party was negligent in failing to keep a proper lookout and that such negligence resulted in a collision or damage.” Nelson v. Evans, 338 Mo. 991, 93 S.W.2d 691, 693; see also Boehm v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.Sup., 368 S.W.2d 361, 367; Whaley v. Zervas, Mo.Sup., 367 S.W.2d 611, 614; Lincoln v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., Mo.Sup., 359 S.W.2d 759, 768; Goldstein v. Fendelman, Mo.Sup., 336 S.W.2d 661; Moore v. Ready Mixed Concrete Co., Mo. Sup., 329 S.W.2d 14, 25; Patton v. Hanson, Mo.Sup., 286 S.W.2d 829, 830; Horrell v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.Sup., 277 S.W.2d 612, 615; Fortner v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.Sup., 244 S.W.2d 10, 14. We consider this instruction to meet the requirements of these cases.

However, plaintiff says the instructions in these cases were simple highway or uncontrolled intersection collision cases and should not apply “where one motorist at a controlled intersection runs a stop sign or a red light, and the other party enters the intersection on a through street or favored with a green light.” Plaintiff cites Witt v. Peterson, Mo.Sup., 310 S.W.2d 857, in which as here the jury found for defendant in a controlled intersection collision! case, contributory negligence of plaintiff' having been submitted on failure to keep a¡. proper lookout although when the plaintiffdrove into the intersection “the traffic light, was green in his favor.” As plaintiff says, the instruction in that case, submitting contributory negligence of plaintiff, did require-the finding that by proper lookout plaintiffcould have seen defendant’s automobile “prior to or after entering said intersection”- and “that plaintiff thereafter could have-stopped his automobile and thus and thereby have avoided the collision.” However, we-did not rule therein that this requirement was an essential element of such a lookout instruction, the plaintiff’s contention being that “the instruction gave the jury a roving commission to find facts which established no duty to act.” That case again ruled (310 S.W.2d 1. c. 860): “The motorist-is not entitled to rely solely on the favorable-signal; nor is he entitled to drive blindly into the intersection without looking. The. duty of care to be exercised remains commensurate with the circumstances, one of which, of course, is the green light in his-favor.” While it would be proper for the-plaintiff to include “ability to avoid” or for the court to give an instruction, at- the defendant’s request, stating such a requirement, our conclusion is that it is not an essential requirement of a lookout instruction, even where the plaintiff entered an intersection on a green light.

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373 S.W.2d 53, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 611, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dial-v-seven-up-bottling-co-mo-1963.