Fox v. Kaminsky

2 N.W.2d 199, 239 Wis. 559, 1942 Wisc. LEXIS 34
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 13, 1942
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 2 N.W.2d 199 (Fox v. Kaminsky) 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
Fox v. Kaminsky, 2 N.W.2d 199, 239 Wis. 559, 1942 Wisc. LEXIS 34 (Wis. 1942).

Opinion

Wickhem, J.

Lloyd and Meta Fox were husband and wife and resided at Marion, Wisconsin. Meta Fox owned a Plymouth car on whose purchase she had turned in a secondhand car, her husband keeping up the payments and habitually using the car with her consent. On November 16, 1940, Lloyd Fox drove this car home and invited his wife and son to take a trip to a Shawano lake to see whether it was free from ice and available for duck shooting. In the hope that he might discover the condition of the Embarrass river, Fox drove along certain side roads which afforded a view of that river. At the time of the accident he was driving north on a town road which was well graveled and along which there was little traffic. Just before the accident he proceeded up a gradual hill which obscured his view. The Kaminsky car was proceeding south and approaching the top of the hill, and a collision occurred. The testimony of the Foxes and of Kaminsky was contradictory as to where each car was driving. *563 Each claimed that the other was driving to the left of the center of the highway. The condition of the cars after the accidmt indicates that the Fox car was struck back of the front left fender by the front of the Kaminsky car.

It is not claimed that the answers to the special verdict are not sustained by the evidence. The principal controversy from the standpoint of the appellant, Fox, has no relation to, and does not affect the right to recovery of Meta Fox. Lloyd Fox contends that there was prejudicial error in excluding the testimony of a disinterested witness who' noted the speed of the Fox car some two thousand feet south of the collision and some six hundred to nine hundred feet east. This witness was approaching the town road on which this accident occurred, and was facing the road from a somewhat elevated point of view. The Fox car passed the intersection of the road on which this witness was traveling at a distance of six hundred to nine hundred feet from the witness. He judged the speed of the Fox car to be thirty-five to forty miles an hour, stated that he had a full view of the road as the Fox car proceeded the two thousand feet to the point of accident, and that the Fox car, if anything, decreased its speed as it went up the hill toward the scene of the accident.

The matter has given us some difficulty, but we are of the view that the exclusion of this evidence constituted error. While it may be true that estimates of speed at a distance of two thousand feet or more may have so little probative value that their exclusion from evidence is at least nonprejudicial, the situation here is different. There can be no' question that an estimate of the speed of the Fox car as it passed the intersection some six hundred to nine hundred feet away and at right angles to the line of travel of witness was within the testimonial qualifications of the witness. In this connection see Ronning v. State, 184 Wis. 651, 200 N. W. 394. The speed at this point, of course, was wholly immaterial, but since the witness was driving at right angles to> Fox’s line of *564 travel and occupied a high point from which observation could be advantageously made, he could at least testify that there was no material or substantial, increase of speed during the two thousand feet following the intersection.

The more difficult question is whether the exclusion of the evidence was prejudicial, but we have been unable to escape the conclusion that it was. It is plain from the verdict of the jury that the factor which differentiated in quality the negligence of Kaminsky and Fox was excessive speed on the part of Fox, and that upon this factor the jury found Fox substantially more negligent than Kaminsky. To be sure, there was in evidence the testimony of Fox on adverse examination that he approached the scene of the accident at a speed of from forty to fifty-five miles an hour, and testimony of Meta Fox on adverse examination that at the time of the accident Fox was going from forty to fifty miles per hour. There was, however, also in evidence the testimony of a former sheriff who arrived at the scene of the accident shortly after its occurrence, and who testified that he exacted from Lloyd Fox an admission that he was driving at a speed of from sixty to seventy miles per hour. The testimony of this witness was attacked by the disclosure that he was being prosecuted by plaintiff’s attorney for malfeasance in office, and that he claims to have talked only to Fox after the accident. His testimony is flatly denied by Fox. It is pointed out by the defendant, Kaminsky, that the jury was amply justified on the basis of testimony of Fox and his wife in finding excessive speed in view of their own testimony and the fact that the view of Fox as he proceeded up the hill was so obscured as to make applicable sec. 85.40 (5), Stats., which requires in traversing grades where the operator does not have a clear view of approaching traffic upon the highway that his speed shall not be greater than that which will permit him to stop his vehicle within one half the range of his vision.

*565 There certainly is evidence from which Fox could be found guilty of excessive speed on the basis of his own testimony. However, the extremely high rate of speed claimed by the former sheriff to have been admitted by Fox went strongly to the quality and degree of Fox’s negligence, and we cannot resist the impression that the jury’s allocation of sixty-two and one-half per cent of the negligence to- Fox and only thirty-seven and one-half per cent to Kaminsky must have been on the basis of a finding of the extreme speed fixed by the admission to which he testified.

In view of this, the rejection of the testimony must be held prejudicial to Fox. It was testimony which tended substantially to support the conclusion, at least that Fox was not proceeding at any tremendous rate of speed, and might even have led the jury to conclude that Fox’s speed which he himself had placed somewhere between forty and fifty-five miles per hour, was nearer to forty miles per hour than to the upper limits of his estimate. This would affect materially the percentages fixed.

We conclude, therefore, that the judgment in favor of Kaminsky and against Fox which adjudges that Kaminsky have and recover his diminished damages against Fox must be reversed.

Defendant Kaminsky grounds his appeal from the judgment in favor of Meta Fox upon the contention that Meta Fox and Lloyd Fox were engaged in a joint enterprise or in the alternative, that Meta Fox, being the sole owner of the vehicle, the presumption is that the driver was her agent and this presumption has never been rebutted. We cannot assent to this. The car was owned by Meta Fox, but her husband had the free use of it. He wanted to take a trip to check weather and lake conditions for the purpose of going duck hunting, an enterprise of his own. His mere offer to take his wife and son upon the trip does not bring the case within the doctrine *566 of Archer v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co. 215 Wis. 509, 255 N. W. 67, or Paine v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co. 217 Wis. 601, 258 N. W. 846. These are cases where the husband and wife were joint owners and were going on a trip in which one was as much interested as another. Here, the duck-hunting interests of Lloyd Fox were alone responsible for making the trip.

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Bluebook (online)
2 N.W.2d 199, 239 Wis. 559, 1942 Wisc. LEXIS 34, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fox-v-kaminsky-wis-1942.