McIlroy v. Wagley

437 S.W.2d 5, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2165
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 31, 1968
Docket436
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 437 S.W.2d 5 (McIlroy v. Wagley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McIlroy v. Wagley, 437 S.W.2d 5, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2165 (Tex. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

OPINION

GREEN, Chief Justice.

This is a suit for personal injuries resulting from a car-truck accident, brought by appellant Jack R Mcllroy against appellees Burl Wagley, d/b/a Wagley Lumber Company, or WALCO, owner of the truck, and James W. Brown, driver of the truck and admittedly an employee of Wagley acting within the scope of his employment. Judgment after a jury verdict was rendered that appellant take nothing. Two inter-venors whose interests are similar to those of appellant also filed appeal bonds. We use the term appellant as referring to Mcll-roy.

The accident occurred about 9:00 o’clock A.M. January 23, 1967 at the intersection of U.S. Highway 181 and Beach Street north of the high bridge across the ship channel in Corpus Christi, Texas. The morning was foggy and visibility was limited to approximately 600 feet or less. At this intersection, and at all places here pertinent, No. 181 is a divided highway with two main traffic lanes north bound and two lanes south bound, a left turn lane and a parking lane north and south. The north bound lanes are separated from the south bound lanes by a median whose continuity is broken at this intersection to permit entrance into Beach Street. The accident happened in the north bound roadway when appellant Mcllroy, driving north in the north bound *7 lane, ran into Brown’s truck which had turned east from the south bound roadway into the intersection and was at the time of the accident attempting to cross said portion of the highway. Basically, there are two versions of the accident as shown by the evidence.

Appellant-plaintiff Mcllroy testified generally as follows: He was travelling about 45 miles an hour in the east lane of traffic northbound on Highway 181. When he was about 200 feet from the intersection with Beach Street, he saw the truck in question entering the intersection and applied his brakes. He skidded a little ways, saw that he was not going to be able to stop on the wet road surface, and let up on his brakes and turned into the center lane to try and pass behind the trailer. When he saw that he couldn’t do that, he again applied his brakes, and skidded into the trailer about even with the rear wheels. Photographs of his car showed extensive damage to the front end.

Appellant called as his witness John Bentley, who qualified on the stand as an accident reconstruction expert. His testimony was based on his having visited the scene several months after the accident where he made numerous measurements of the intersection and inspected the highway generally and upon his study of a number of photographs taken about 15 to 30 minutes after the occurrence of the accident. From such inspection and studies, he made and testified to various calculations as to distance, reaction time, stopping distance, comparative location of the vehicles, the speed of the car and of the truck at various stages of their travel after perception point, i. e. the starting point of the reaction period, velocity speed in feet per second of each vehicle at various stages after perception, and other matters. He prepared a scale plat of the scene which was introduced in evidence as PX-33 and gave testimony based upon it as well as on other exhibits.

*8 His testimony and deductions basically were:

Appellant was driving’ towards the north at 45.1 miles per hour, or 66 feet per second. About 185 feet from the point of impact, he perceived the truck, travelled 49.6 feet during the reaction time, skidded 46 feet in the east lane of the roadway, released the brake and turned into the center lane for 49 feet, and skidded another 40 feet, striking the truck at a speed of 27.55 miles per hour. From the time appellant entered the intersection until the collision, 3.273 seconds elapsed. The positions of the truck and car numbered on PX-33, shown herewith as prepared and testified to by Bentley (with some added identification notes) are: (1) Point of perception of truck by plaintiff; (2) point where car brakes first applied; (3) point where car brakes released; (4) where car brakes re-applied; (5) point of impact. The distance between objects or places were as shown on the plat at the scale of 1 inch equals 30 feet. If the truck driver had seen appellant and had reacted at the time appellant first saw the truck, the truck would have stopped 4½ feet in the center lane. The truck travelled 22 feet after the driver saw the approaching car, a time elapse of 1.325 seconds. If the car had been as far away as the truck driver testified when he first saw it, appellant would have to be driving more than 200 m. p. h. to cover the distance to the collision. Bentley placed the truck’s speed at 12.71 m. p. h. (18.65 feet per second) at point of impact and 3 to 5 m. p. h. at entrance of intersection. The trailer of the truck was moved 12 feet by the collision. At 60 miles per hour, a car moves 88 feet per second. (See plat)

Defendant Brown, the truck driver, testified in substance that he was proceeding south on the highway, intending to turn left at the Beach Street intersection to gas up at a Shamrock service station situated on the access road east of the highway, and just north of Beach Street. As he approached the Beach Street intersection, he pulled into the left turn lane and stopped to let northbound traffic pass. When he had satisfied himself that no more cars were coming from the south, he made the left turn and “eased up to the highway and looked, and nothing was coming” so he entered the intersection at an estimated speed of from 2 to 4 miles per hour, accelerating his speed to about 9 or 10 miles per hour at point of impact. He observed the approaching car lights coming out of the fog when the front of his cab was near or in the center of the inside traffic lane and when the car, so he estimated, was about 450 feet away and in the inside lane. The lights of his truck, front, rear, and side were on. He had travelled about 61 feet in the intersection when he was hit. He estimated that he travelled between 22 and 30 feet after he first saw the car before the collision. His trailer which when empty weighed 11,000 pounds was knocked about 12 feet to the north by the impact, causing the truck to partly jackknife. The posted speed limit was 50 m. p. h. Brown had been driving on Highway 181 at 45 m. p. h., which he considered a safe speed where the fog was light, but he stated that while driving through heavy fog he slowed down to 30-35 miles per hour.

Bobby Green, manager of the Shamrock station, testified: He saw the truck waiting for the traffic to clear, saw him make his turn, and after the truck had entered the intersection and the front was about in the center lane he saw the headlights on appellant’s car about a block or a block and a half away, or about 400 feet from the intersection in the inside lane emerging from the fog. He could not see the car through the fog when the truck entered the intersection. When the car was about 100 to 150 feet from the truck, at which time the front end of the truck was at the east median line of the intersection, Green anticipated a collision, and started running toward the truck. He verified Brown’s testimony that the lights of the truck were burning. He expressed his opinion that the car was travelling at a speed of approximately 70 miles per hour when he first saw it, and that it never slowed its speed. The *9

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
437 S.W.2d 5, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2165, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcilroy-v-wagley-texapp-1968.