Fuller Ex Rel. Fuller v. Neundorf

1956 OK 31, 293 P.2d 317, 1956 Okla. LEXIS 362
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 31, 1956
Docket36565
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 1956 OK 31 (Fuller Ex Rel. Fuller v. Neundorf) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fuller Ex Rel. Fuller v. Neundorf, 1956 OK 31, 293 P.2d 317, 1956 Okla. LEXIS 362 (Okla. 1956).

Opinions

WELCH, Justice.

Dallas Fuller, a minor, by his mother, Betty Fuller, as next friend, sued Lloyd Gene Neundorf for damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff as a result of a collision of automobiles, and allegedly caused by certain acts of negligence of the defendant. The defendant filed an answer in the suit constituting a general denial of all the plaintiff’s allegations of negligence of the defendant, and stating a further defense that the collision was caused or contributed to by certain alleged acts of negligence of the driver of the automobile in which the plaintiff was a- passenger, and further that the collision and resulting injuries therefrom were an unavoidable casualty in so far as the defendant was concerned. The plaintiff filed a motion that the defendant be required to elect between his asserted defenses of contributory negligence and unavoidable casualty, which motion was overruled.

At trial the mother of the minor plaintiff testified that on a certain date at about "9 o’clock P.M. and it was dark, she was the driver of ah automobile and proceeding in a northerly direction on a north-south roadway at a speed' of about 45 miles'per hour and toward a point where the said roadway was intersected by an east-west roadway; that she did not see- another car until she started into the intersection when she saw the defendant’s car to her right and which she thought to be about sixty or seventy feet away. The next thing she knew was when the defendant’s car hit her car; that the ;plhintiff was a passenger in her cár and sustained certain personal injuries as the result of the said collision.

The witness identified a photograph of her car made after the collision. The photograph reveals severe indentations and breaks in a side of the car from a point below the base of the windshield to a point slightly behind the rear wheel.

A trooper for the State Department of Public Safety arrived at the scene of the collision about an hour after the collision. The trooper testified that he found glass and debris in the southeast corner of the intersection, in the center, and that he found glass and debris pretty well over the north side of the intersection; that he found tracks leading from the southeast part of the intersection over to where the vehicles were then parked; that there were tracks leading to a distance of 65 feet to the defendant’s car parked in a ditch and' headed west .and at the north side of the east-west road and to the west of the north-south road, and also tracks leading to a distance of 77 feet to the other car parked in a ditch at the west side of the north-south road and to the north of the east-west road. The witnesses testified, concerning an experiment conducted in the vicinity of the intersection two days after the collision; that at said time, and it was after dark, he walked about 150 feet in each direction from the intersection, and that a car was driven on the roadways to the intersection; that standing on the roadway about 150' feet from the- east of the intersection you were first able to see over a field of wheat just the top of a car coming from the south traveling north, or enough of the car to tell it was a vehicle coming; that you could not see the headlights on the car, but could see the light from the headlights;, that usually car lights will light up about five or six hundred feet fairly well.

A photograph of the intersection taken from the roadway to the south was introduced in evidence, and there was testimony concerning injuries received by the plaintiff as a result of the collision.

The defendant testified concerning'events-before the collision that he was driving his-car in a westerly direction on the east-west road at a speed about 45 miles per hour, and toward the intersection of the north-south road, 'that to the north he observed the lights of a car heading south and that to-the' south he ! observed -no movement or light; that he went into the intersection at 45 miles per hour and immediately there was';a flash and he was rendered unconscious.

A driver of a‘south bound car on the north-south roadway at the time of the collision, gave testimony to the effect that he [320]*320saw the west bound car and the north bound car as they approached the intersection, and that the two cars reached the intersection in a tie. The witness stated his car- lights were on the north-south roadway as he proceeded south on the roadway, and that he was about a block to the north •of the intersection when the two cars collided in the intersection.

■Trial was to a jury and resulted in a -verdict and judgment for the defendant.

The plaintiff in appeal contends it was reversible error for the trial court to overrule the plaintiff’s motion to require the defendant to elect as between the defenses of contributory negligence and unavoidable casualty as set forth in defendant’s pleading; that it was reversible error for the trial court to instruct the jury on .“unavoidable accident,” since the defendant had also plead “contributory negligence” and further that there was no evidence to justify instructions on unavoidable accident.

Under circumstances that there was evidence tending to show that the automobiles, one from the south, and one from the east,, and being operated at approximately same speeds, arrived at the intersection at the same time, and that there was high ground and with a stand of wheat thereon sufficient to obscure the vision of the drivers as between them, we find there is no cause for the plaintiff, a passenger of the north bound driver, to complain of an instruction on unavoidable accident.

In Fuller v. Neundorf, Okl., 278 P.2d 836, 837, a case growing out of the same collision as here involved, it was held:

“Under the Code of Civil Procedure a defendant in a tort action, may plead a general denial, contributory negligence and unavoidable accident, and where the evidence tends to disclose, substantially, circumstances which would justify the jury in concluding that there is an inevitable or an unavoidable accident, it is the duty of the court to give an instruction on the- issue of unavoidable accident.”

The rule as above stated in the earlier Fuller case is here applicable and is here adopted.

The plaintiff asserts the trial court erred in withdrawing from the consideration of the jury the issue of punitive damages.

In Fuller v. Neundorf, supra, the Court said:

“To entitle the plaintiff to recover exemplary damages in an action sounding in tort, the proof must show some element of fraud, malice, or oppression. The act' which constitutes the cause of action must be actuated by, or accompanied with, some evil intent, or must be the result of such gross negligence, such disregard of another’s rights, as is deemed equivalent to such intent.”

In the mere fact of the pleading of such issue there was no reason to submit the issue to the jury. As we view the testimony herein there was no evidence to support a finding that the defendant acted in fraud, malice or oppression or that the acts complained of were actuated by, or accompanied with an evil intent or the result of such gross negligence with disregard of another’s rights as is deemed equivalent to such evil intent. Accordingly, we find no merit in the said assertion of error.

It is argued, the trial court erred in a refusal to give the plaintiff’s requested instructions numbered 8 and 10.

Instruction No.

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Fuller Ex Rel. Fuller v. Neundorf
1956 OK 31 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1956)

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Bluebook (online)
1956 OK 31, 293 P.2d 317, 1956 Okla. LEXIS 362, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fuller-ex-rel-fuller-v-neundorf-okla-1956.