McCown v. Schram

289 N.W. 890, 137 Neb. 498, 1940 Neb. LEXIS 22
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 2, 1940
DocketNo. 30657
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 289 N.W. 890 (McCown v. Schram) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McCown v. Schram, 289 N.W. 890, 137 Neb. 498, 1940 Neb. LEXIS 22 (Neb. 1940).

Opinion

Paine, J.

This is an action for personal injuries sustained by a guest passenger in an automobile, which it is alleged was operated in gross and wanton negligence near Marysville, Kansas. It is brought by the mother of the minor guest against the administrator of the estate of the driver, who was killed in this accident. The evidence of the plaintiff included the offer of certain sections of the statutes of Kansas and a • number of decisions of its . supreme court which had been duly pleaded in the amended petition. When the plaintiff rested, the defendant demurred to the evidence, and the demurrer being sustained the trial court dismissed the action and overruled the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.

[499]*499The defendant’s demurrer to the evidence was based upon the following reasons: (1) The evidence of the plaintiff is insufficient to support a cause of action in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant; (2) the evidence fails, as a matter of law, to establish that the defendant’s decedent was guilty of gross and wanton negligence toward the plaintiff; (3) the evidence is insufficient to establish beyond a point where reasonable minds may differ that the defendant’s decedent was guilty of gross and wanton negligence toward the plaintiff; (4) the evidence discloses that the defendant’s decedent, as a matter of law, was not guilty of gross and wanton negligence toward the plaintiff; (5) the evidence discloses beyond a point at which reasonable minds may differ that the defendant’s decedent was not guilty of gross and wanton negligence toward the plaintiff; (6) the evidence establishes that the defendant’s decedent under the laws of Kansas was not guilty of gross and wanton negligence toward the plaintiff; (7) the evidence establishes that the defendant under the law is not liable to the plaintiff; (8) the evidence discloses that the plaintiff assumed the risk of riding with the defendant’s decedent.

The plaintiff’s case having been dismissed on a demurrer to the evidence, it is necessary to briefly set out the evidence which was before the jury. Violet McCown, the plaintiff, who was about 17 years of age, her cousin, Ruth Day, who was the same age, the deceased driver of the car, Arnold L. Sehram, whose nickname was “Speck,” an employee of Wilke’s bakery in Beatrice, and his friend, Lewis Gaver, who had been his “buddy” and pal for about three years, were the four parties in the Chevrolet sedan at the time of the accident. About 8:30 p. m., June 25, 1937, Gaver went to the bakery to meet “Speck,” and soon thereafter the two went to Beck’s poolroom, where they each drank five bottles of regular beer in the time they remained there. They then drove to Howe’s Barbecue, where each drank two more bottles of beer, and Sehram then drove home to change his clothes. About 9:30 to 9:45 he returned [500]*500with Ruth Day and Violet McCown as guests in his automobile, and picked up Lew. After driving about Beatrice for a while, Schram said he wanted to see Jimmie Travis, a friend who had recently opened a restaurant at Marysville, Kansas, and leaving Beatrice at about 10:20 they drove to Marysville at about 45 miles an hour, stopping at Wymore, where Schram bought three more bottles of beer, which he drank on the way to Marysville, drinking- the last bottle as he drove into Marysville.

When they reached the Travis restaurant, the proprietor was not there, and Schram and Gaver and two friends, Jim Winters and Art Axtell, went behind the restaurant to drink spiked “Coke” so the girls, who were sitting in the car, would not know it. Art Axtell testified that he opened each bottle of “Coke” and poured it out down to about an inch and a half from the top and filled it up with whisky, and each one of the four men drank a bottle of this spiked “Coke.” Shoi-tly thereafter they started home. Before leaving, the driver, Schram, disconnected the speedometer so the girls would not see how fast he was going, as he said he was in a hurry to get to Beatrice and finish some work he had to do at the bakery. They started west from Marysville, driving on a graveled road, rough like a washboard, with hardly room enough for two cars to pass. The accident occurred about a half mile west and three miles north of Marysville. Schram drove his car in the center of this graveled road, and some of the time on the west, or wrong, side of the road, and the evidence of some of the witnesses was that he was driving 60 to 70 miles an hour. The plaintiff, Violet McCown, who was sitting with Schram in the front seat, warned him several times to slow down, but he paid no attention to her. When she saw the lights of the other car approaching, Violet said, “My God, Speck, watch out.” After the collision the driver endeavored to right his car, but failed, for the car turned completely over and landed on the west side of the road on its wheels. In turning over, the driver was thrown under the car and killed, and the plaintiff suffered many injuries, among which [501]*501were five cuts on her forehead and face, leaving scars which, it is explained, will interfere with her work as a beauty parlof operator.

The testimony shows that immediately after the accident the three survivors reached an agreement that they would protect the driver and say nothing at all about his drinking, which tends to account for a statement being signed by Ruth Day on July 8, in which she said that she had the feeling that Schram was driving carefully at the time of the accident, with both hands on the wheel, and paying strict attention to his driving, and that neither Arnold nor Lewis had anything to drink of an alcoholic nature. She testified that the gentleman who got her to sign the statement told her that the purpose of the statement was so that Mr. and Mrs. Schram could get “Speck’s” life insurance, and claimed that she did not read the statement, nor was it read to her, but that the gentleman asked her some questions and wrote something down, and she signed it. This statement was identified as defendant’s exhibit A, and introduced as part of the cross-examination of Ruth Day. She explained on cross-examination that out there in the road right after the accident Lew told them that the driver had been drinking, and the three of them agreed to say nothing about his drinking.

The plaintiff introduced in evidence several sections of the Kansas law relating to drinking and driving a car. Kansas did not repeal its state prohibition law after the Eighteenth Amendment was set aside, and section 21-2174, Gen. St. Kan. 1935, provides that driving while under the influence of liquor is a felony, and this section reads as follows: “Driver under influence of intoxicating liquor or drug injuring another. That it shall be deemed a felony for any one under the influence of intoxicating liquor, or any exhilarating or stupefying drug, to injure another person by reckless driving of a vehicle upon any public road, highway, street, avenue, driveway or alley within the state of Kansas.”

The guest statute of Kansas is section 8-122b, Gen. St. [502]*502Kan. 1935, and reads as follows: “Right of guest to collect damages from owner or operator. That no person who is transported by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle, as his guest, without payment for such transportation, shall have a cause of action for damages against such owner or operator for injury, death or damage, unless such injury, death or damage shall have resulted from the gross and wanton negligence of the operator of such motor vehicle.”

In a late Kansas decision, Donelan v. Wright, 148 Kan. 287, 81 Pac.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
289 N.W. 890, 137 Neb. 498, 1940 Neb. LEXIS 22, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccown-v-schram-neb-1940.