Kohler v. Sheffert

96 N.W.2d 911, 250 Iowa 899, 1959 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJune 9, 1959
Docket49703
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 96 N.W.2d 911 (Kohler v. Sheffert) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kohler v. Sheffert, 96 N.W.2d 911, 250 Iowa 899, 1959 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420 (iowa 1959).

Opinion

Oliver, J.

This case involves an automobile collision in the intersection of Locust Street, a through street, and West Third Street, in Dubuque, Iowa, J une 5, 1956, at 8:19 p. m. Both streets were paved. Plaintiff was driving his automobile north on Locust Street, across this intersection, when a non-operating Ford automobile owned by Paul E. C'ohaway, ran, out of control, down a long hill on West Third Street, through a stop sign and into* plaintiff’s ear, injuring plaintiff and damaging his automobile. Thereafter plaintiff instituted 'this action for damages, naming as defendants Joseph Sheffert, doing business as Sheffert’s Garage, who started the Ford down the hill, 'and Ellen Conaway, who. occupied the driver’s seat.

Trial to a jury resulted in judgment for plaintiff against both defendants. From this judgment defendant Sheffert, only, has appealed. He assigns error to orders overruling his motions for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding verdict and his exceptions to. instructions.

There is-little dispute in the record. However, in de>termining the sufficiency of the evidence to require submission of the ease to- the jury, it will be considered in the -light most favorable to plaintiff. Some time prior to the accident Mr. Con-away and others had been working on the engine of his 1941 Ford at a high school in a course in mechanics. Early in 1956 he joined the Marine Corps 'and left Dubuque. His wife, defendant Ellen Conaway, remained in Dubuque. In April an instructor returned the automobile from the school and parked it across the street from the Conaway apartment. He testified it was not working properly but the brakes were then working and he did not examine them. Mrs. Conaway was a licensed automobile driver with little experience. She engaged someone to move the Ford and park it directly in front of her apartment, placed a block behind a wheel 'and left it standing there, unused.

*902 Subsequently Mr. Conaway planned to return. Mrs. Conaway telephoned appellant, Sheffert, about the car. She told him the starter would not turn the motor over, and engaged him to tow it to his automobile repair garage, cheek it over, and work on it if -there was anything to be done. After a number of calls, appellant came to her apartment early in the evening of June 5, without his tow truck, which he explained was not then available, aaid without a helper. She handed him the keys to the Ford. He opened the door and pushed the starter button. The motor did not turn over. He tried the gearshift which was- on the steering wheel. He did not check the brakes, although he knew the ear had not been operated for two or three weeks.

He then told Mrs. Conaway he wanted to push the car to get it started and “if she put the oar in high geair and 'held the clutch in until I got the car up to about 15 miles an hour and released the clutch, that the car would start.” -She told him she had never done that and did not like the idea. However, she got into the Ford and “did as he said.” He put the car in high gear and instructed her to- turn the ignition on. With his ear he pushed the Ford west one and one-half blocks to- Burch Street, where it stopped of its own accord, apparently when appellant’s car stopped pushing it. Appelant testified: “Then I decided to push her over Burch Street.” He directed her to steer the Ford around the corner to the left and they traveled one- block south on Burch Street down a slight slo-pe to West Third Street where the two- cars again stopped. Appellant had pushed the Ford at a speed up to- ten or fifteen miles per hour and Mrs. Conaway had engaged the clutch a number of times but the motor had not started. She- had not tried -to- apply the brakes.

Appellant testified: “She got in the car and steered it and did what I told her, -at least up to- West Third and Burch Street. I directed her as to what gear -to- put the car in and directed her to steer the ear and how to steer it.”

As the Ford stood on Burch Street at the entrance to its intersection with West Third Street, -appellant shouted to Mrs. Conaway to- turn the corner to the left and park and he would take it from there. He testified he intended to take her home ^nd pick up the- Ford Isvtor, His car then pushed the Ford into *903 the downsloping intersection and stopped. The Ford rolled ahead and Mrs. Conaway turned it to the left (east). This intersection is on a hill, down which West Third Street runs east to and past Bluff Street which is more than one-third mile distant. From the center line of Burch Street to a point 100 feet east, the downgrade of West Third Street is 3.94% (which the city engineer testified is a medium grade), 10.17 % for the next 307 feet (which he testified is normally a very steep grade), then 9.57% for 150 feet, 8.5% for 200 feet, 10.08% for 50 feat, 14.52% for 100 feet, 16.43% for 100 feet, 16% for 150 feet, 16.62% for 200 feet, 11.43% for 100 feet, and 8.87% for 250 feet to the west line of Bluff Street.

Mrs. Conaway testified that as she turned the Ford into West Third Street it was too far out in the street to park and when she was pulling over to the curbing, “¡the car started to pick up momentum” and she applied the brakes and for the first time, “discovered there wasn’t 'any brakes 'and I just kept going.”

The curbing was high 'and the car was scraping it and was too close to jump over it. She tried to hit it and the car kept bouncing back. “All I know I was scraping along the side on my route down the hill and I saw the stop sign below and I don’t know how close I was to it but it gave me such a fright being the car was going such a fast rate of speed I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to shift it and discovering that didn’t do any good I guess I fainted. I came fo after the oar had come to a complete stop. I have no- memory of crossing Biuff Street or of hitting the telephone pole between Bluff and Locust Streets or of hitting the Kohler car.”

At the scene of the accident an officer tested the brakes of the Ford by pushing the brake pedal to the floor with his hand and found they were not then operating.

Plaintiff pleaded appellant .assumed control of the 1941 Ford automobile for transportation to his garage and had full and exclusive charge thereof, that Mrs. Conaway acted as appellant’s agent in operating it while he pushed it with his automobile, and that the two were jointly or severally negligent in various particulars, which negligence was the proximate *904 cause of ithe collision. All /these allegations were denied in appellant’s answer. The specifications of negligence submitted to the jury were:

“a) For pushiug .an automobile not in operation to and onto the brink of a precipitous bill without cheeking or without knowing the condition of said automobile.
“b) By -causing and knowingly permitting to be moved on a public street a vehicle which was in such unsafe condition as to endanger any person, -and which did not contain those parts, or was not equipped at that time with equipment in proper condition and adjustment as required iby law.
“c) By causing a motor vehicle in -traveling upon a downgrade to coast with the gears- of such vehicle in neutral.

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Bluebook (online)
96 N.W.2d 911, 250 Iowa 899, 1959 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 420, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kohler-v-sheffert-iowa-1959.