Myers v. American Chain & Cable Co.

109 So. 2d 270, 1959 La. App. LEXIS 785
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 5, 1959
DocketNo. 4701
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 109 So. 2d 270 (Myers v. American Chain & Cable Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Myers v. American Chain & Cable Co., 109 So. 2d 270, 1959 La. App. LEXIS 785 (La. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinion

ELLIS, Judge.

Plaintiffs have appealed from a judgment dismissing their suit for personal injuries and property damage as a result of an accident that occurred on Thursday, January 17, 1957, approximately five miles east of the city of Eunice, Louisiana, on U. S. Highway 190, around 11:45 P.M. Ernest Myers had been sent by his employer, Jackson Ford Motor Company, Inc., of Sulphur, Louisiana, to pick up a new 1957 Ford station wagon which was to be delivered to a customer of the Jackson Ford Motor Company, Inc. When Myers was about 5 miles east of Eunice, La., he ran into the rear portion or end of a Plymouth automobile owned by Taunice Vidrine, and which had been driven by his minor son, Roger J. Vidrine, to the Green Lantern Club in Lawtell, Louisiana, along with a young lady who, at the time of the trial, had become his wife, and his two sisters, where they had attended a dance. Young Vidrine and his guest passengers left the club around 11:30 to return to their home, and were driving on U. S. 190 in a westerly direction at approximately 50 to 55 miles per hour when the rear end of their automobile was struck by a 1956 Ford being driven by defendant, Palmer Warner Grim, who at the time was in the employ of the American Chain & Cable Company, also made defendant herein, as well as its insurer, the American Mutual Liability Company. As a result of the rear end collision the 1956 Ford driven by Grim continued off of the highway, went through a canal, through a fence and turned over with its four wheels up in the air in a pasture on the south side of the highway. The Vidrine automobile was knocked around in a counter clockwise movement and came to rest with its front end facing in a northeasterly direction and its rear end in a southwesterly direction. The evidence and diagrams as to its position show that its right front wheel was closer to the center line than its right rear wheel which was some four or five feet from the center line, which would place the automobile in a crosswise position with most of it in the north, or westbound, lane of traffic and the rear portion protruding into the east or southbound lane of traffic, in which the plaintiff Ernest Myers was traveling from Eunice toward Opelousas, at the time that he struck the rear protruding portion in his lane of travel.

The preponderance of the evidence is convincing that Grim was intoxicated. The state trooper testified that he considered him so and that he smelled very strongly of alcohol. Grim contends that he had had a few drinks with friends around Baton Rouge before leaving on his way to Houston and had stopped only for coffee outside of Opelousas when he became drowsy, and that he was not in anywise intoxicated but only sleepy and possibly had dozed or drowsed just prior to, or at the time of, the collision. In either event he is guilty of the grossest kind of negligence.

Immediately after the Grim car had struck the Vidrine automobile young Vid-rine and his guest passengers got out of the [272]*272automobile and went to the south side of the road where young Vidrine flagged down two cars and one truck. He had no light hut managed to attract their attention by waving his arms standing close to the highway. He asked the occupants of the car to notify the law, which they evidently did as the State Trooper arrived on the scene at 11:58. The transport truck which he flagged down proceeded on down the highway approximately 300 feet and was pulling off to park at the time that the second collision occurred. The truck driver was going to get out flares and put them behind the Vidrine car on both sides in order to protect any traffic that might come along before the car could be moved. We do not find from the record any negligence on the part of young Vidrine as it was not shown that he could possibly have moved his car. The front lights were still burning but shining across the other lane of travel from that in which Myers was approaching. The tail lights were out. There is no evidence that there was any kind of light to the rear or on the rear part of the Vidrine automobile. It is definitely proven that the Vidrine automobile was stopped with a portion of its unlighted rear end protruding into the lane of travel on the south side of U. S. Highway 190. Also it is shown by the record that a very short time elapsed between the first collision and the second, although it is definitely established that it was not simultaneous.

It is argued that the negligence of Grim cannot be classified as a concurrent cause because the injury to the plaintiffs could not have happened from his negligence and the negligence of the Vidrine vehicle after they had come to rest. Counsel for defendant, American Chain & Cable Company, Inc., Grim, and the American Mutual Liability Company, cited and quoted the rule as laid down in the case of Kern v. Bumpas, La.App., 102 So.2d 263, 265, viz.:

“Our jurisprudence requires of the complainant that he demonstrate that the act of negligence charged be the proximate cause of the injury. This condition is met by establishing a causal connection by a natural and unbroken sequence without intervening efficient causes between the negligence and the injury, and if, in the sequence of events between the original negligence and the injury, an entirely independent cause intervenes and is itself sufficient to stand as the cause of the accident, the second cause is the ‘proximate cause’, and the other the ‘remote cause’, of the accident.”

However, we agree fully with the counter argument of counsel for plaintiffs as set forth in his brief and we quote:

“Thus, under the circumstances of this case, regardless of which version we accept with reference to the condition of Palmer Warner Grim, it was certainly willful misconduct and gross inexcusable negligence to proceed down the highway at such a speed to overtake a moving vehicle, when he did not and could not have had full control of all of his faculties. As a result of this gross and inexcusable negligence, Palmer Warner Grim brought about a situation which contributed to and proximately caused the whole series of events which immediately followed. In this connection, counsel for American Chain & Cable Company, American Mutual Liability Insurance Company and Palmer Warner Grim will in all probability attempt to argue that there was an intervening cause between the impact of the Grim vehicle and the impact of the Myers vehicle. In such a situation this Court expressed in Chavers v. A. K. Blossman [Inc., La.App.], 45 So.2d 398, 402, as follows:

“ ‘That is not the law in this state. The law of this state is well set forth in the case of Lynch v. Fisher, La.App., 34 So.2d 513, 518, and from which we quote the following:

“ ‘ “We think it is well established that the general doctrine of foreseeability is not applicable to the extent of relieving one who sets in motion, through the agency of the negligent act, a chain of circum[273]*273stances leading to the final resultant injury. In Payne v. Georgetown Lumber Co., Ltd., 117 La. 983, 42 So. 475, 477, the Court said: ‘That the particular injurious consequence was “improbable” or “not to be reasonably expected” is no defense. Wharton, Law of Negligence, (2d Ed.) Section 77. The same writer says:

“ ‘ “The fact is, that the consequences of negligence are almost invariably surprises. A man may be negligent in a particular matter a thousand times without mischief; yet, though the chance of mischief is only one in a thousand, we would continue to hold that the mischief, when it occurs, is imputable to the negligence.” ’

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Bluebook (online)
109 So. 2d 270, 1959 La. App. LEXIS 785, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/myers-v-american-chain-cable-co-lactapp-1959.