Engstrum v. Sentinel Co.

267 N.W. 536, 221 Wis. 577, 1936 Wisc. LEXIS 393
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 2, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 267 N.W. 536 (Engstrum v. Sentinel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Engstrum v. Sentinel Co., 267 N.W. 536, 221 Wis. 577, 1936 Wisc. LEXIS 393 (Wis. 1936).

Opinion

Fritz, J.

The injury involved herein was sustained by Marian Engstrum while she was walking across East Wisconsin avenue about twenty-five feet east of its intersection with North Fourth street, in the city of Milwaukee, at 12 :30 p. m., on Saturday, October 4, 1930. At that time the vehicular and pedestrian traffic was very heavy at that intersection, which is in a busy retail business district. Mrs. Engstrum was a graduate nurse, thirty-nine years of age, and in good health, and had also been employed as a saleslady.

In passing upon defendant’s motion for a directed verdict, the trial court was required to construe the evidence most favorably to the plaintiffs. Thus construed, it admitted of considering the following facts established: Immediately [579]*579prior to the accident, Mrs. Engstrum had stepped from the south sidewalk of East Wisconsin avenue at a point twenty-five feet east of the north and south crosswalk at the east side of the intersection of East Wisconsin avenue and North Fourth street. She proceeded northeastward to walk around the rear of a westbound streetcar standing east of that crosswalk on the north car track. The roadway between the curb lines on East Wisconsin avenue was fifty feet wide, of which seventeen and one-half feet were between the south curb and the south rail of a track for eastbound streetcars; five feet two inches were between rails of that track; and four feet six inches were in the dummy space between the north rail of that track and the south rail of the track for westbound cars. Mrs. Engstrum testified that, when she first saw the defendant’s truck, she was four feet south of the south rail of the eastbound track, and the truck,' — coming north on North Fourth street, — was turning eastward onto East Wisconsin avenue and had already reached a point east of the east curb of North Fourth street. She tried to throw herself out of the way by turning to the south, and was six feet south of the south rail just before the left front fender and bumper of the truck struck her right side. She also testified that after the collision she was lying on the rails of the eastbound track, opposite a point five feet west of the rear end of the vestibule of the stationary westbound streetcar. But a police officer testified that she was lying on the roadway, seven feet from the south curb, when he helped pick her up. The truck driver testified that he first saw her as she entered the truck’s pathway by coming out from between two automobiles parked at the south curb, when the truck was but three feet from her, and that he traveled five feet after he first saw her. Skid marks two to three feet long, which were made by the truck’s wheels, began thirty-eight feet east of the crosswalk.

The trial court held that Mrs. Engstrum’s failure to yield the right of way to the defendant’s truck while she was [580]*580crossing East Wisconsin avenue as a pedestrian, over twenty-five feet east of the marked crosswalk, was such a violation of sec. 85.44 (4), Stats., as to constitute negligence as a matter of law; and that her negligence in that respect was, under the existing facts and circumstances, a proximate cause of her injury, because of which neither she nor her husband can recover from the defendant.

The appellants contend that that ruling was erroneous. They claim that the failure of a pedestrian to yield the. right of way to an automobile in violation of sec. 85.44 (4), Stats., does not constitute negligence as a matter of law, and that, even if it does, the court was not justified in holding that Mrs. Engstrum’s failure was a contributing cause of her injury, as a matter of law.

Sec. 85.44 (4), Stats., which is entitled, “Pedestrian right of way forfeited when jaywalking,” provides :

“Every pedestrian crossing a highway at any point other than a marked or unmarked crosswalk shall yield the right of way to vehicles upon the highway.”

The language used in thus imposing upon every pedestrian crossing a highway elsewhere than at a marked or unmarked crosswalk the duty of yielding the right of way to vehicles is identical with that used in sec. 85.44 (1), Stats., which provides that:

“The operator of any vehicle shall yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing the highway within any marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. ...”

In so far as identical language is used in those two subsections, the duty imposed thereby upon pedestrians and motorists, respectively, is equally absolute in each instance, and, when either one of them actually violates his absolute duty by failing to yield the right of way as the subsection applicable to him requires him to, there is no' issue of fact as to whether such violation was due to> any failure on the part of the [581]*581violator to exercise ordinary care. So, in applying sec. 85.44 (1), Stats., we said in Edwards v. Kohn, 207 Wis. 381, 385, 241 N. W. 331: •

“. . . This statute imposes upon the drivers of automobiles the absolute duty of yielding to pedestrians on crosswalks, as therein defined, the right of way, and juries will not be permitted to find a compliance with this statute on the part of offending automobile drivers on the ground that such drivers were in the exercise of that degree of care that the great mass of mankind ordinarily exercises when acting under the same or similar circumstances. . . .”

As the corresponding duty of a pedestrian to yield the right of way, when he crosses elsewhere than at a marked or unmarked crosswalk, is expressed just as clearly and positively in sec. 85.44 (4), Stats., his duty to yield the right of way to a motorist under the condition stated therein is certainly just as absolute as is the duty of the latter, under sub. (1), sec. 85.44, Stats., to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing at the crosswalk; and the failure of either to perform his respective duty to' yield the right of way conferred by those safety statutes upon the other user of the highway constitutes negligence as a matter of law on the part of the party in default. Even though, as appellants contend, the purpose in requiring a motorist to yield the right of way as'prescribed in sub. (1), sec. 85.44, Stats., was the protection of pedestrians, and it was not the purpose to provide like protection to motorists by enacting sub. (4) of that section, that mere difference in purposes would not warrant disregarding the clear meaning of the identical, unambiguous, and explicit language which is used in each of those subsections.

It follows that in this case Mrs. Engstrum, — as we held in respect to the plaintiff in Doepke v. Reimer, 217 Wis. 49, 258 N. W. 345, — was negligent as a matter of law in failing to yield the right of way to a motorist upon the highway while she was crossing the street elsewhere than at a marked or unmarked crossing.

[582]*582Appellants also contend that Mrs. Engstrum was not negligent as a matter of law because, as she had started to cross the street before the traffic control signals and the traffic officer at the intersection had changed the signal so as to authorize east and westbound traffic to move, vehicles so moving at that intersection were obliged tO' yield the right of way to her under sec. 85.44 (2), Stats., which reads :

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Bluebook (online)
267 N.W. 536, 221 Wis. 577, 1936 Wisc. LEXIS 393, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/engstrum-v-sentinel-co-wis-1936.