Minato v. Ferrare

652 P.2d 867, 60 Or. App. 122, 1982 Ore. App. LEXIS 3527
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedOctober 27, 1982
DocketNo. 79-472-L, CA A21705
StatusPublished

This text of 652 P.2d 867 (Minato v. Ferrare) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Minato v. Ferrare, 652 P.2d 867, 60 Or. App. 122, 1982 Ore. App. LEXIS 3527 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinions

YOUNG, J.

Plaintiff appeals from the judgment entered on a jury verdict in his favor by which the jury assessed total damages of $113,500 and found plaintiff to be 45 percent at fault. The issue presented is the application of the statutes governing the activities of pedestrians to an individual who is employed by a private survey crew and is working in the road. We find that the instructions given by the trial court in this regard were erroneous and reverse.

The facts as they relate to this appeal are not disputed. On March 21, 1978, plaintiff was working as a surveyor’s assistant for a private employer. In carrying out his duties he was required to stand on the centerline of the Williams Highway, south of Grants Pass, to allow the surveyor, who was off the road, to determine a point on the section line. The point used by the surveyor was on the centerline of the highway. While plaintiff was holding a plumb bob on the centerline of the highway, he was struck by a car driven by defendant.

Plaintiff assigns error to the failure of the trial court to give one of his requested instructions concerning the standard of care required of a worker in the road. He also assigns error to the giving of six instructions, based on the Motor Vehicle Code, describing the responsibilities of pedestrians on or near the road.

The instructions given by the trial court were derived from ORS 487.285 - 487.355, which contain the “Rules of the Road” for pedestrians. The jury was told:

“* * * I further instruct you that it is the law of this State that a pedestrian shall not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and move into the path of a vehicle which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.
“I instruct you that the law of the State of Oregon provides a pedestrian commits the offense of failure to yield the right of way if he fails to yield the right of way to a vehicle upon a roadway when he is crossing the roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or at an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.
“I instruct you that the law of the State of Oregon provides that the other provisions of the law concerning [125]*125rights of way for pedestrians or drivers does not relieve the driver or pedestrian from the duty to exercise due care.
“I instruct you that the law of the State of Oregon provides that a pedestrian violates the law in not using a shoulder if he positions himself along or proceeds along the roadway where there is an adjacent usable shoulder.
“Further, a pedestrian violates the law of this State if he fails to position himself upon, or proceeds along and upon a highway which has neither sidewalks nor shoulder available, as near as practicable to the outside edge of the roadway and if the roadway is a two way roadway, only on the left side of it.
“I instruct you that the law of the State of Oregon provides that a pedestrian upon a roadway shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway.
“I instruct you that a person upon a roadway, as Plaintiff was at the time of the accident, engaged in private survey work, must yield the right of way to vehicles upon the roadway the same as any other person standing or working upon the roadway.”

Plaintiff contends that the statutes governing the actions of pedestrians on the roadway do not apply to workers on the road. Plaintiff relies on Graves v. Portland etc. Power Co., 66 Or 232, 134 P 1 (1913), and McCarty v. Hedges et al, 212 Or 497, 309 P2d 186, 321 P2d 285 (1958), for the proposition that “ ‘while a worker must take some care for his own safety, he is not charged with the same degree of care as an ordinary pedestrian * * ” McCarty v. Hedges et al, supra, at 519; cf. White v. East Side Mill Co., 84 Or 224, 161 P 969, 164 P 736 (1917) (police officer held to ordinary care required by the circumstances then existing).

Since those cases were decided, Oregon statutes have been amended to include a definition of pedestrian as “* * * any person afoot * * ORS 487.005(14). In addition, ORS 487.045 now provides:

“Unless otherwise specifically provided, the provisions of chapter 451, Oregon laws 1975, except those relating to a serious traffic offense, do not apply to persons, motor vehicles and other equipment employed by the United States, this state, any county, city, district or other political subdivision or a public utility while on a highway and working or being used to service, construct, maintain or [126]*126repair the facilities of the utility, or to persons, motor vehicles and other equipment while operated within the immediate construction project, as described in the governmental agency contract if there is a contract, in the construction or reconstruction of a street or highway when the work is being done in an area that is signed in accordance with the manual adopted under the provisions of ORS 487.853, but shall apply to such persons and vehicles when traveling to or from such facilities or construction project.”

The issue before us is whether the enactment of these statutes changed the rule announced in Graves v. Portland etc. Power Co., supra:

“* * * It must occur to a reasonable mind that in this age of strenuous endeavor, in order to do efficient work and to scant not the measure thereof, the individual toiler must pursue his employment sometimes to the utter engrossment of his faculties and, realizing the present necessity of concentration, the courts of modern thought have announced the rule that those persons engaged in work upon the public streets are not called upon to exercise the same diligence in avoiding accidents as pedestrians who use the street merely as a medium of locomotion. * * *.” 66 Or at 243-44.

We conclude that they have not changed that rule and that the instructions given in this case were erroneous. First, despite the broad definition of “pedestrian,” we do not believe that it was intended to encompass those whose work requires them to be in the roadway. If such workers were bound to the rules that govern the actions of pedestrians traveling on the road, they would violate the law by doing what their jobs require. For example, a worker such as plaintiff would violate ORS 487.320 (pedestrian’s use of sidewalk, shoulder and roadway edge) by undertaking to perform the job that required that he hold a plumb bob at a particular point on the centerline of the roadway.

It has long been the general rule that workers in the road are not treated as pedestrians, see Graves v. Portland etc. Power Co, supra; James v. Edwards, 68 Wash 2d 194, 412 P2d 123 (1966); Mecham v. Crump, 137 Cal App 200, 30 P2d 568 (1934); Chance v. Scroggins, 3 Kan App 2d 11, 588 P2d 479 (1978); Hartwig v. Olson, 261 Iowa 1265, 158 NW2d 81 (1968); Schutz, Jr. v.

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Related

McCarty v. HEDGES
321 P.2d 285 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1958)
James v. Edwards
412 P.2d 123 (Washington Supreme Court, 1966)
Myers v. Pearce
115 S.E.2d 842 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1960)
Smith v. Cooper
475 P.2d 78 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1970)
Hartwig v. Olson
158 N.W.2d 81 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1968)
Knowles v. Stargel
52 N.W.2d 387 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1952)
Schutz, Jr. v. Breeback
178 A.2d 889 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1962)
Mecham v. Crump
30 P.2d 568 (California Court of Appeal, 1934)
Lovell v. School District No. 13
143 P.2d 236 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1943)
White v. Sands
90 S.E.2d 835 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1956)
Graves v. Portland Ry., Light & Power Co.
134 P. 1 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1913)
White v. East Side Mill Co.
161 P. 969 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1917)
Chance v. Scroggins
588 P.2d 479 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 1978)

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Bluebook (online)
652 P.2d 867, 60 Or. App. 122, 1982 Ore. App. LEXIS 3527, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/minato-v-ferrare-orctapp-1982.