Nash v. Roden

415 S.W.2d 251, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2556
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 10, 1967
Docket11479
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 415 S.W.2d 251 (Nash v. Roden) 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
Nash v. Roden, 415 S.W.2d 251, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2556 (Tex. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

PHILLIPS, Chief Justice.

The automobile accident that brought about this suit occurred on Interstate Highway 35 just north of the Bluff Springs overpass and a few miles south of the city of Austin. Interstate 35 is a freeway with three lanes each for northbound traffic and for southbound traffic. The northbound lanes and southbound lanes are separated by a grass median approximately ten feet wide.

At approximately 5:30 p.m. in November, 1963, the appellant, Carol Nash, was northbound on Interstate 35 driving in the right-hand, or outside, lane of traffic. At this time Calrol Nash was a high school student, had been licensed to drive for only a few months and had only limited driving experience.

On the day of the collisions the weather was intermittently raining, showering and misting.¡ The highway was wet and slick, the flow of traffic was heavy, especially the northbound traffic. Carol Nash had never driven on a wet highway prior to this date.

At the same time and place, James Ratterree, was also driving his car north on Interstate 35; however, he was driving in the left-hand, or inside, lane of traffic. James Ratterree was a salesman and had been driving for about twenty-seven years and drove approximately forty-seven thousand miles a year.

*253 As Ratterree drove over a hill about a quarter of a mile south of the Bluff Springs overpass, he saw Carol Nash’s vehicle approximately 200 feet in front of him in the outside lane of traffic. The Ratterree vehicle was overtaking the Nash vehicle and at the Bluff Springs overpass the Nash vehicle began to pull over into the center northbound lane to pass a car which was about 50 feet in front of it. At the time the Nash vehicle started to pass this car, the Ratterree vehicle was about 75 feet behind and was gaining on it. Ratterree applied his brakes lightly, as a precautionary measure, when the Nash vehicle started to pass the car in front of it.

When the Nash vehicle was approximately half in the outside lane and half in the center lane, Carol Nash applied her brakes and her vehicle went into a fast counterclockwise spin. Her car immediately skidded to the left through the center lane of traffic and directly across the path of the Ratterree vehicle which was about 40 feet south, or behind it, at the time.

In a split-second the front end of the Nash vehicle spun around and collided with the front end of the Ratterree vehicle just north of the Bluff Springs overpass. In another split-second the Nash vehicle skidded backward across the uncurbed median and struck the appellee Roden vehicle broadside in the southbound, outside lane of traffic.

The entire chain of events, described above, took place “in just a few seconds,” “almost instantaneous,” “within seconds,” was a “split-second chain reaction” and was all over in “3 to 5 seconds.”

The jury returned a verdict in which it found the appellant, Carol Nash, to have been negligent in failing properly to apply her brakes, failing properly to turn her vehicle, failing properly to accelerate and in crossing into the southbound lanes of traffic when such movement could not be made with safety, all of which were found to have been a proximate cause of the collision with the appellee’s vehicle.

The jury exonerated James Ratterree of the one act of negligence inquired of against him, and found two other acts of Ratterree not to be the sole proximate cause of the collision, and further found the appellee, Coy Roden, free of contributory negligence. The jury found the accident was not avoidable and judgment was entered on the verdict finding damages in the total amount of $23,304.74 against the appellant, Carol Nash.

It is from this verdict and judgment that appellant has perfected her appeal to this Court.

We affirm.

I.

Appellant is before this Court on forty-one points of error, the first two, briefed together, are: the error of the trial court’s definition of proximate cause in his charge to the jury, for the reason that the definition did not properly include the phrase “unbroken by any new and independent cause;” the error of the trial court in refusing the definitions of “proximate cause” and “new and independent cause” tendered by the appellant.

We overrule these points.

We quote from appellant’s brief:

“There can be no question but that, regardless of any negligence on the part of Carol Nash in applying her brakes or attempting to pass another vehicle or whatever, the fact remains abundantly clear that her vehicle had completed a skid wholly on its own northbound portion of the roadway, and Carol Nash was in the process of trying to start her car again to regain control of it at the time when a second collision occurred, forcing her vehicle into an entirely new path onto the southbound portion of the roadway and into collision with appellees’ vehicle, the rear end of the appellant’s vehicle striking the left side of the appel-lees’ car at roughly a right angle. Not *254 only was there no more motive force remaining from the spin of Carol Nash’s vehicle which would have carried her across the curbed median, across two traffic lanes and into contact with the Rodens’ car, but there is at least a serious question whether, under any theory of ‘causation,’ she could reasonably have anticipated the chain of events which took place, or could have reasonably anticipated injury to the appellees or those situated in the position of the appellees. If one wishes to assume, for the purpose of this problem, that there was negligence on the part of Carol Nash in applying her brakes improperly or in some other manner as submitted to the jury, there at least was evidence tending to break this causal connection, and the appellant, Carol Nash, was entitled to have the jury properly charged with a definition of ‘Proximate Cause,’ including the element of ‘new and independent cause,’ together with a proper definition of ‘new and independent cause.’ The appellant was deprived of this proper submission of the case, which under the evidence calls for a reversal. The ‘new and independent cause,’ of which your appellant feels there was some proof which entitled your appellant to a proper definition of ‘Proximate Cause’ and a proper submission to the jury, was a force itself capable of causing the damage to the appellees herein, in and of itself. Carol Nash was in essentially the same position, even though the front of her vehicle was reversed, as she would have been had her vehicle stalled through some defect, or for want of gasoline or for any number of reasons on the roadway, and it cannot be denied under the evidence that the proof presented in this case is without contradiction that the force which propelled the appellant’s vehicle across the curbed median and into contact with the appellees’ vehicle came from one source, that of James Ratter-ree.”

In this connection appellant cites the following cases: Phoenix Refining Co. v. Tips, 125 Tex. 69, 81 S.W.2d 60 (Comm. of App., 1935); Southland Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Cotten, 126 Tex. 596, 91 S.W.2d 326 (Comm. of App., 1936); Southern Ice & Utilities Co. v. Richardson, 128 Tex. 82, 95 S.W.2d 956 (Comm.

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Bluebook (online)
415 S.W.2d 251, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2556, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nash-v-roden-texapp-1967.