Headrick ex rel. Headrick v. Dowdy

450 S.W.2d 161, 1970 Mo. LEXIS 1099
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedFebruary 9, 1970
DocketNo. 53588
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 450 S.W.2d 161 (Headrick ex rel. Headrick v. Dowdy) 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
Headrick ex rel. Headrick v. Dowdy, 450 S.W.2d 161, 1970 Mo. LEXIS 1099 (Mo. 1970).

Opinion

SEILER, Presiding Judge.

This is a suit for $35,000 damages by a 6-year-old child who ran out into the street after a ball and either ran into or was struck by defendant’s automobile. The jury returned a verdict for the defendant. The trial court gave a new trial on the ground plaintiff had not had a fair and impartial trial because of failure of a juror to disclose on voir dire prior claims, lawsuits, and whether or not he knew plaintiff’s lawyer or was involved in any pending litigation. The defendant appeals, on two grounds: that plaintiff failed to make a submissible case and that the court erred in the ruling on the juror.

Did plaintiff make a submissible case, which he submitted to the jury on an instruction hypothesizing that defendant either failed to keep a careful lookout, or knew or by the use of the highest degree of care should have known there was a reasonable likelihood of collision in time [162]*162thereafter to have stopped, slackened speed, or sounded a warning-, but failed to do so, etc. ? There was evidence from which the jury could have found the following: North Market Street, in St. Louis, runs east and west. The accident happened in the 2200 block, which is an area of brick, two and three-story dwellings or flats, most of which come right up to the sidewalks with no front yard or lawn and little, if any, side yards. The street is level, with asphalt paving, 36 feet wide, with the usual city curbings. There is parallel parking of automobiles on both sides. The weather was clear and dry. The date was May 26, 1966, and it was about 4:30 p. m. The defendant, driving a 1965 Mustang, accompanied by Mrs. Minnie Anderson, was headed west on Market, going home from work. Her automobile was equipped with power brakes and power steering. The tread on the tires was good and the brakes were in good working order, as was the horn.

We are particularly interested in the north side of the street, because it was from the north that plaintiff ran into the street. The accident happened in the street about 130 to 140 feet west of the intersection of North Market and 22nd Street. The first 94½ feet of the north side of Market, proceeding west from the intersection, is occupied by an abandoned garage and filling station. These two buildings sit back 25 feet or more from the sidewalk along the north side of Market and do not figure in the accident other than being used as points of reference by witnesses. Next west is a two-story flat, 2209 North Market, 16½ feet in width. The front of this flat sits back 32 feet from the north curb of Market. Plaintiff’s cousin, with whom he was playing, lives at 2209. Next is 2211 Market, another brick, two-story flat, but there is an open space of 8 feet, 9 inches between 2209 and 2211. Everyone in the case refers to this open space as a gangway. The gangway is about 117 feet west of the west edge of the intersection. 2211 Market does not sit back from the sidewalk as does 2209, but instead comes up to the north edge of the sidewalk. The sidewalk is 11 to 12 feet wide and it extends to the curb.

Plaintiff and his cousin were playing with a ball in the gangway and the ball went out in the street. Plaintiff ran after it. The question is, when should defendant have seen plaintiff running after the ball and what could defendant do about it? Defendant was driving on the right hand side of Market as she crossed the intersection of 22nd and Market. She had stopped at the intersection, on the east side of 22nd, to let cross traffic pass. After crossing the intersection, defendant estimated she picked up speed to around 15 to 20 miles per hour. An adult eye witness put her speed somewhere between 20 and 30 miles per hour. At one point defendant said she was going 20 to 25 miles per hour when she saw the child.

Defendant never did see a ball roll out into the street, although she said there was nothing that would have prevented her from seeing it. However, her companion, Mrs. Anderson, saw the ball “come out here” and “glanced like anyone would do and I seen this ball go across.” Mrs. Anderson said she saw the ball going across the street from north to south and called defendant’s attention to it; defendant denied this. Mrs. Anderson said the ball was red, white, and blue, not as big as a beach ball, but a little bit bigger than a baseball.

Mrs. Anderson testified she (Mrs. Anderson) saw the child coming out of the gangway and knew right then he was chasing the ball. Defendant testified she (defendant) did not see the running boy until she saw something moving to the north side of the street, in front of one of the parked cars and then she saw the boy come out from the car. Defendant said she swerved to her left, put on her brakes, blew the horn, and was either stopped or almost stopped at impact. However, there was evidence defendant did not apply her brakes until after she swerved, that no [163]*163skid marks were left by her car, that there was no sound of squealing brakes or tires, and that no horn was heard to sound. There were no other moving westbound or eastbound automobiles in the immediate area. There was testimony the cars between which the boy' ran out were 6 or 7 feet apart. There was also testimony to the effect there were no cars parked along the north curb east of the gangway, (if this were true, there would have been no obstruction to defendant’s view of the area between the street and the gangway as she approached from the east). Plaintiff’s father testified defendant told him at the scene she did not see the child.

The impact was against the side of the right front fender, which plaintiff ran into with his head and hands. He tried to hold onto the fender, but his feet went under the car. He suffered a compound fracture of his left leg. There was a dispute as to whether the automobile was still sufficiently in motion that the front wheel rolled slowly onto the leg. The impact was at a point about 10 feet north of the south curb and about 12 feet west of the gangway, so plaintiff evidently was running across the street on a diagonal, west and south.

If by testifying she saw him come out of the gangway, Mrs. Anderson meant the end of the gangway as fixed by the south front of the flat at 2209 Market, then the boy had about 21 feet to go to reach the north curb and another 29 feet or so in the street to the point of impact. If by the end of the gangway she meant the end as fixed by the south front of the flat at 2211 Market, which came to the north side of the sidewalk, then the boy had about 11 feet to go to reach the curb, or a total of 40 feet to the point of impact. The witnesses were agreed the boy was running fast, that he “had his speed up.”

But the defendant did not see the boy until he was coming out between the parked cars along the north curb. If we put the width of the parked cars at 6 feet and assume they were parked within a foot of the curb, as appears to be true in the photographs which witnesses said showed the cars parked in approximately the same positions as at the time of the accident, the boy would have travelled about 24 feet from where defendant testified she first saw him to the point where he ran into the side of the right front fender. While he was covering this distance defendant was first swerving her car left, and then from a speed of somewhere between 15 and 30 miles per hour, bringing her car to a complete stop or almost a stop.

If defendant’s companion, Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
450 S.W.2d 161, 1970 Mo. LEXIS 1099, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/headrick-ex-rel-headrick-v-dowdy-mo-1970.