Hafemann v. Milwaukee Automobile Insurance

34 N.W.2d 809, 253 Wis. 540, 1948 Wisc. LEXIS 433
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 14, 1948
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 34 N.W.2d 809 (Hafemann v. Milwaukee Automobile Insurance) 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
Hafemann v. Milwaukee Automobile Insurance, 34 N.W.2d 809, 253 Wis. 540, 1948 Wisc. LEXIS 433 (Wis. 1948).

Opinion

Fritz, J.

The plaintiff Hafemann was injured on April 6, 1946, at about 1:15 a.m. while riding as a guest in an auto *542 mobile operated by the defendant and appellant, Jack Lancin. While driving along Kinnickinnic avenue, a public arterial highway, Lancin noticed that his gasoline supply was running low and to get gasoline he drove into the private driveway of a tavern about seventy-five feet east of the east edge of the said highway. Upon learning that there was no gasoline for sale, Lancin got into his car and turned on his lights and proceeded to back westward out of the driveway into the highway with the intention of turning and going northward in search of gasoline. The highway was forty-six feet wide and south of the tavern driveway the roadway was fairly straight and level, with trees lining the east side thereof and some other obstructions to the view southward in,the direction from which defendant Brinza was approaching in his automobile. Lancin knew the highway was a busy street even at that time of the night and realized he was backing into a dangerous highway. His car was painted black and the entrance to the driveway was not illuminated.

Lancin backed his car westward out of the driveway into the highway until his right front wheel was about at the east curb and his car was facing northeastward. Then he shifted from reverse into first gear and proceeded northward but a few feet when his gasoline supply became exhausted and the motor stopped operating; but because of the momentum of his car it moved a little further northward before it stopped and was struck by Brinza’s car. He, with John Schomisch and Tony Danek also sitting in the front seat, was driving northward on the highway about ten feet west of the east curb and did-not see Lancin’s car until he was five feet from it, although there were proper lights, including a taillight, on that car.

There is a conflict in the evidence as to whether or not Lancin did stop his car before proceeding on the driveway -across the sidewalk area (actually, there was no sidewalk there) on the east side of the highway. Lancin testified that *543 he did so stop, but Hafemann testified Lancin did not stop. Likewise, there is a conflict as to whether Lancin’s car was still moving forward at the time of the collision or had come to a complete stop. He testified that he was at a stop for one or two minutes before the collision. However, Hafemann testified Lancin’s car was still moving when the cars collided, that the collision occurred within seconds after Lancin started to back out and that his car had moved forward maybe one foot when it was struck; but on an adverse examination before trial, Hafemann had testified that Lancin’s car was at a dead stop at the time of the collision.

As the headlights on Brinza’s car Were'lighted, Lancin could have seen it approaching had he looked to the south. However, in testifying, Lancin first stated that he did not see the Brinza car before the collision but subsequently stated that he saw that car for the first time when it was eighty to one hundred feet south of him, and that Lancin’s car was then almost parallel with the curbing of the highway. Brinza testified that as he was approaching the point of impact he was traveling about thirty miles per hour, that at this speed he could stop in about fifteen feet, and that his lights were such as to enable him to see an object the size of an automobile about one hun'dred fifty feet ahead of him.

On the trial the jury found:

(1) That Lancin was causally negligent as to, (a) failing to stop his automobile immediately prior to moving on to the sidewalk area; (b) lookout; (c) yielding the right of way; (d) management and control; and (e) that he causally failed to exercise ordinary care not to increase the risk assumed by plaintiff as his guest; (2) That Brinza was causally negligent as to, (a) lookout; (b) but was not causally negligent as to yielding the right of way; (c) management and control; and (d) speed; (3) The jury attributed seventy-five per cent of the total causal negligence to Lancin and twenty-five per cent thereof to Brinza.

*544 Upon our review of the proof it is clearly evident that it was within the province of the'jury to find all of the ultimate facts as stated in the verdict.

The appellants’, Milwaukee Automobile Insurance Company and Lancin, principal contention is that because Lancin, in backing out of the driveway at one to two miles per hour a full car length oft to the highway and stopping in this position to shift gears before going forward with his car ten to twenty feet in low gear until the motor stopped, and then moving about five feet more by the momentum of the car, the time which elapsed in Lancin’s thus backing up, shifting gears, and moving forward, required at least seven seconds; find that during that time Brinza, approaching from the south along the highway at thirty miles per hour, traveled at least three hundred fifteen feet, so that he must have been over three hundred fifteen feet south of the driveway when Lancin started to cross the sidewalk area. That consequently, as Lancin had the right to assume that Brinza was approaching in the exercise of ordinary care and keeping a proper lookout, and as the roadway was forty-six feet wide, with three lanes and no traffic approaching from the north, and as Brinza by a slight deviation of his car would have avoided the collision, Lancin, even if he had seen Brinza coming at a distance of three hundred fifteen feet, could believe as an ordinarily careful person situated, as he was, that he could safely back out on to the street. And, therefore, appellants contend there is no support in the evidence for the jury’s finding that Lancin’s failure to stop before moving on to the highway was the proximate cause of the collision.

That contention cannot be sustained. Appellants claim that upon Lancin’s shifting gears, his car moved from ten to twenty feet in low gear and then, by its momentum moved five feet more, is dependent upon solely his testimony. But the jury could and probably did consider more credible Hafe- *545 mann’s testimony that after Lancin shifted gears, his car had moved forward maybe one foot when it was struck by Brinza’s car. Consequently, in this and likewise other material respects, there was sufficient evidence to warrant the jury’s finding that the time which elapsed between Lancin’s moving on to the sidewalk and into the street, without stopping his car, and the time of the impact was so brief and the approaching Brinza car was so near, instead of being about three hundred fifteen feet to the south as appellants claim, that Lancin’s failure to stop his car prior to moving on to the sidewalk area and on to the highway, was an efficient cause of the collision.

Lancin’s failures in that respect were violations of the provision in sec. 85.18(8) and (9), Stats., which read,—

(8) “The operator of a vehicle emerging from an alley, private driveway or garage shall stop such vehicle immediately prior to moving on to the sidewalk or sidewalk area extending across the paái of such vehicle, or if there is no sidewalk or sidewalk area then before crossing the near limits of the roadway.”

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Bluebook (online)
34 N.W.2d 809, 253 Wis. 540, 1948 Wisc. LEXIS 433, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hafemann-v-milwaukee-automobile-insurance-wis-1948.