Messer v. Bruening

142 N.W. 158, 25 N.D. 599, 1913 N.D. LEXIS 128
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedMay 17, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 142 N.W. 158 (Messer v. Bruening) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Messer v. Bruening, 142 N.W. 158, 25 N.D. 599, 1913 N.D. LEXIS 128 (N.D. 1913).

Opinions

Goss, J.

Defendant appeals from an order denying a motion for new trial. Plaintiff recovered a verdict for $800, based upon injuries caused by the horse he was driving becoming frightened at an automobile owned and operated by defendant. The accident occurred on a level prairie where both parties had plenty of opportunity to avoid trouble. The road was of the usual four rods in width, with no embankments, and with plowed fields on either side. The immediate cause of the injury was the dashboard and front of the single buggy giving way when plaintiff attempted to control his horse, allowing him to slide forward into a dangerous position, immediately behind and almost against the animal. He sustained an injury to his leg, for which he has asked judgment for $3,200, made up of items of $2,000 for damages because of pain and injury suffered, $1,000 special damages for loss of time, and $200 special damages for medical attendance and treatment. The jury allowed a lump sum of $800.

Defendant, Bruening, had shortly before the accident been at the house of one Albus, situated about a half mile west of the main north and south highway. In coming from the house he had approached the highway from the west, and, upon reaching it, turned south, and had gone some distance, variously stated by witnesses to be from no distance at all to a mile, when he discovered that the radiator of the automobile needed water, and because of which he turned around to go back to the Albus place to fill it. He had two ladies in the car. One of them, who had often driven this automobile, was driving. Soon afterwards the two vehicles met while plaintiff was going south and defendant north on the level highway. When defendant had reached the highway coming from the Albus place, and first turned south, the plaintiff, who was also going south, was several hundred feet north of the point where defendant came into the highway. The defendant had driven the automobile, a two-seated Buick machine, for two years and was an experienced driver. The plaintiff was driving a young horse hitched to a single buggy. The accident occurred on the 8th of May, 1910. Plaintiff had purchased the horse and buggy in March of that year. His wife was with him. Both plaintiff and defendant lived in Carrington, and the accident occurred about 6 miles south of that place, defendant having, on the way out to the Albus place, overtaken and passed the plaintiff some little time previously.

[604]*604The accident occurred in broad daylight. The distance between the two approaching vehicles from the time defendant turned around to go back for water is variously placed at from a mile to less than a block. The plaintiff testifies that he was about 500 feet to the north of the point where defendant entered the highway on turning south coming from Albus’s place. As the accident occurred some distance south of such point, the automobile must have gone a considerable distance south before turning, to have given plaintiff the time to drive the 500 feet and such additional distance as he was past the intersection of the road coming from the farmhouse with the highway. Had plaintiff not been south of this intersection, defendant would not have met him while returning, as he was, to the Albus house. During this time defendant was traveling southward, as he states, at a speed of from 15 to 18 miles an hour, and so constantly increasing the 500-foot distance intervening between plaintiff and the machine when the machine turned into the highway and went south. The only possible reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that the automobile had traveled southward to such a distance after it turned into the highway, and that at the time of turning around to return for water defendant was so far distant from the plaintiff’s rig that no negligence can be predicated upon either the fact of the turning or the manner in which it was done, or upon any noise or smoke, so-called, from the machine at that point in the occurrences. Any negligence in the case, then, must have occurred later, as the parties approached or passed each other. Concerning this the testimony of all witnesses (including the plaintiff himself), except the testimony of the wife of the plaintiff, establishes that as the vehicles approached one another the machine left the beaten track, turned to the right nearly to the extreme edge of the road close to the plowing, leaving a rod or more intervening between it and the beaten track upon which plaintiff kept his horse; plaintiff meanwhile made no effort upon the approach of the automobile to turn to the right or in any way to avoid accident. This he admits, giving as a reason that he had no time to do so because of the speed at which the automobile approached him. There is competent testimony that as the vehicles approached one another plaintiff’s wife threw up her hands and called for defendant to stop. Whether the machine stopped at once is in conflict, but the preponderance of the evidence is to the effect that it did, while the jury [605]*605in finding this verdict must have found that it did not. The defendant and another occupant of the car testified positively that the ear was stopped at once. A bystander testifies to seeing it standing still there. And we understand plaintiff’s testimony to admit that it stopped. Speaking of the automobile, he says: “It came close, and had to stay, and the horse started to jump.” Whether it stopped or not, the plaintiff, for some reason, turned his horse to his left and toward the side from which the automobile was approaching, and while the automobile was on the outside of the highway the horse dashed in front of it eastward, into the plowed field. While on the field, in attempting to stop the animal, the plaintiff placed his feet against the dashboard, which gave way, letting him out almost upon the horse. He then lost hold of the left rein, retaining the right one, causing the, horse to immediately circle to his right some 150 or 200 feet, going from the east field across the road into the west one, at which place plaintiff’s wife, who had fallen out of the rig in the field, met the horse, stopped it, unhitched, released her husband from his predicament, rehitched the horse to the buggy, and both drove on. The rig was not upset, and doubtless no injury would have resulted to either of the occupants had not the front of the single buggy given way.

Defendant is charged with negligence in approaching at a dangerous and unreasonable rate of speed, making an unusual and loud noise with the machine, causing it to emit and throw out great clouds of smoke, running it without a muffler attached, needless blowing of the horn, whistle, or trumpet on approaching, making unnecessary noise to frighten the horse, failure to stop the machine when the horse was observed to be frightened, failure to stop on command of the plaintiff, and wanton negligence in making unnecessary noise with the machine and its whistle or trumpet, and in running the machine in too close proximity to the plaintiff’s horse so as to make it unmanageable, — all to the injury of the plaintiff resulting therefrom. On the proof it develops that any negligence on the defendant’s part in this case must be found elsewhere than in any violation of statute by failing to stop the machine when requested to do so, as plaintiff, the driver of the horse, did not signal to defendant to stop. The whistle or trumpet described in the complaint is reduced by the testimony to the ordinary rubber bulb horn.

[606]*606Four of defendant’s assignments of error concern the admission of testimony. We have examined them carefully, and consider them not well taken. The remaining assignments concern the instructions.

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Related

Messer v. Bruening
156 N.W. 241 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1916)
Armann v. Caswell
152 N.W. 813 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1915)
State v. Wilson
174 S.W. 163 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1915)
Schaar v. Conforth
151 N.W. 275 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1915)
Ellsworth v. Jarvis
141 P. 1135 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1914)
Stuch v. Town
144 N.W. 833 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1914)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
142 N.W. 158, 25 N.D. 599, 1913 N.D. LEXIS 128, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/messer-v-bruening-nd-1913.