Home/Supreme Court of Iowa/McKlveen v. Townley

McKlveen v. Townley

299 N.W. 25, 230 Iowa 688
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJune 17, 1941
DocketNo. 45592.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 299 N.W. 25 (McKlveen v. Townley) 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
McKlveen v. Townley, 299 N.W. 25, 230 Iowa 688 (iowa 1941).

Opinion

Sager, J.

On the 16th day of December, 1938, Vernon Townley, who will for convenience be spoken of as if the sole appellant, was driving the car of co-defendant (his father) with the latter’s consent. Appellant was a student at Iowa City and on the date mentioned had returned to his home in Waterloo. In keeping with some previous arrangement he drove to New Virginia to pick tip Virginia McKlveen, appellee’s intestate, and from thence proceeded to Des Moines to meet mutual friends. Immediately at and for some dial anee prior to the point of the accident, appellant was driving approximately north on a pavement eighteen feet wide to a point where the highway swings to a curve to the northwest at an angle of about fifty-one degrees. *690 At the same time one Ressler was coming from the north on the west side of the pavement with a truck and trailer. The vehicles met in violent collision, the right front of appellant’s ear striking against the left front of the truck. The condition of the truck is not described, but the right front of the car was completely crushed. When the accident was' over the truck was on the west or right-hand side of the road, with the rear of the trailer a short distance on the pavement. The car was close by, on the wrong side of the highway and off of the pavement.

The witnesses who first approached say that the truck was in the ditch and against the bank. There was in fact scarcely any ditch, but a slight depression and a steep incline as will appear by the photograph to which reference will be made. Appellee’s intestate was found near the truck dead with her neck broken. Appellant lay nearby unconscious. Roach, riding with the driver of the truck, was dazed or practically unconscious. Ressler’s condition at the time was not described and is not important. He died before the trial and we do not have the benefit of his testimony.

From here on the picture becomes blurred and obscure. Appellant remembers only a crash and has no memory of events beyond that. No witnesses, other than those in the vehicles involved, saw them come together. This leaves only the witness Roach. He testified that the truck in which he was riding was moving about thirty-five miles per hour but did not know whether it had stopped before the accident. He testified that he saw appellant’s car at a distance of 500 to 600 feet. He may have meant that he saw the reflection of lights at that distance. He said he saw the car only an instant before the impact and that he didn’t see it until within fifty to seventy-five feet of it. Again, he said he saw it coming down the ditch on the wrong side of the road for about 200 feet.

We append a photostatic copy of an exhibit used on the trial.

The mark “A” in the middle background shows where the collision occurred. Appellant was driving north to that point while Roach and Ressler approached from the north beyond “A” to the left and behind the embankment shown. The night was dark, and, so far as appears, there was nothing beyond what *692 this photograph discloses to enable the witness to judge the speed, location or distance of appellant’s car. Yet Roach undertook to say that appellant was driving seventy-five to eighty miles per hour and was approaching on the wrong side of the highway. The condition of appellant’s car as to whether steering gear or something else went wrong is not shown.

*691

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183 N.W.2d 720 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1971)
Winter v. Moore
121 N.W.2d 82 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1963)
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104 N.W.2d 575 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1960)
Skalla v. Daeges
15 N.W.2d 638 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1944)
Russell v. Turner
56 F. Supp. 455 (N.D. Iowa, 1944)
McKlveen v. Townley
7 N.W.2d 186 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1942)
Maland v. Tesdall
5 N.W.2d 327 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1942)
Greiner v. Hicks
300 N.W. 727 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1941)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
299 N.W. 25, 230 Iowa 688, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcklveen-v-townley-iowa-1941.