Ohio Casualty Insurance v. Gudger

456 N.E.2d 547, 8 Ohio App. 3d 152, 8 Ohio B. 210, 1982 Ohio App. LEXIS 11232
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 30, 1982
Docket82AP-525 and 82AP-526
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 456 N.E.2d 547 (Ohio Casualty Insurance v. Gudger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ohio Casualty Insurance v. Gudger, 456 N.E.2d 547, 8 Ohio App. 3d 152, 8 Ohio B. 210, 1982 Ohio App. LEXIS 11232 (Ohio Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

Moyer, J.

This matter is before us upon the consolidated appeals of plaintiff-appellant Ohio Casualty Insurance Company, in case No. 82AP-525, and defendant-appellant Tracy L. Stewart, in case No. 82AP-526, from a judgment of the Municipal Court of Franklin County in these cases which were consolidated in the trial court. The judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff-appellee State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company on its complaint against defendant Tracy L. Stewart (“Stewart”) and in favor of defendant-appellee Margaret T. Gudger (“Gudger”) on the complaint filed against her by plaintiff Ohio Casualty Insurance Company and plaintiff-appellee Perry Stewart.

We observe that a cross-appeal has also been filed in both cases. However, because the cross-appeal was filed on June 11, 1982 from judgments rendered on January 4,1982 and January 21,1982, and because the cross-appellants have not argued their cross-appeal either in brief or in oral argument, the notice of cross-appeal is sua sponte dismissed.

The facts in both cases are the same. At approximately 9:45 p.m. on December *153 5, 1980, Stewart was operating a-motor vehicle southbound on Stelzer Road when she struck a motor vehicle driven by Gudger, which was also traveling southbound and had just left the driveway on the property of Jack Jones, a witness to the accident. The pavement was wet, and the speed limit in the area was forty-five m.p.h. Stewart admitted traveling forty-eight m.p.h.

Witness Jack Jones testified that Gudger had just delivered a newspaper to his house and was re-entering Stelzer Road in a southbound direction when he saw a car driven by Stewart coming through a traffic light at the intersection of McCutcheon Road and Stelzer Road to the north of his house; that said car proceeded southbound on the roadway through a dip in the road and then into the rear of the Gudger automobile; and that the speed of the Stewart car, as it was approaching, was approximately fifty-five to sixty m.p.h. Jones stated that, as he observed the Stewart automobile proceed down the hill, he thought it was unusual that the car did not start braking because the Gudger automobile had pulled into Stelzer Road and was starting a slow acceleration; that he observed the Stewart car swerve to the right to avoid an impact and estimated that the Stewart automobile was traveling about fifty-five m.p.h. just before the impact; and that Stewart had stated to him at the scene of the accident that: “* * * she had never seen the car.” He estimated that the Gudger automobile traveled about ten feet on Stelzer Road before it was hit, and that it was traveling two to five m.p.h. Jones further testified regarding the length of the dip in the road and the visibility from his driveway to the top of the hill at McCutcheon Road. He also testified that no more than ten seconds elapsed from the time he saw the Stewart automobile at the top of the hill at McCut-cheon Road and the time of impact.

Gudger testified that McCutcheon Road was possibly sixty to seventy yards from the point of impact; that she lived several houses away from the accident site; and that she thought she had enough time to get out of the driveway without being hit by the Stewart automobile, which she said she saw on the other side of McCutcheon Road.

The highway patrol officer who investigated the accident testified that the point of impact was four-tenths of a mile south of McCutcheon, and that Stewart had told him at the scene of the accident that she had been traveling forty-eight m.p.h. Stewart and Ohio Casualty Insurance Company, in their motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial, proffered testimony of the same patrol officer that corrected two reference points he identified at trial which referred to the lowest point in the dip in the roadway, a telephone pole alongside the roadway and the point of the collision. In overruling the motion, the trial court stated that it had based its decision not only on the erroneous testimony but also on other evidence, including the credibility of the witnesses, the road conditions and the parties’ testimony regarding speed of the vehicles.

Stewart testified that she was traveling to the airport when the accident occurred; that she did not realize there was going to be an accident until she nearly hit Gudger and was braking and down shifting to avoid the accident; that she first saw the Gudger car when she was approximately seventy-five feet from it; and that she was traveling forty-five to fifty m.p.h. Also included in the evidence is a statement provided by Stewart immediately following the accident which reveals several discrepancies between her testimony then and at the time of trial.

Appellants raise the following three assignments of error in support of their appeal:

“1. The finding of the trial court that Tracy Stewart was negligent and her negligence was the sole proximate cause of the accident was against the manifest *154 weight of the evidence and contrary to law.
“2. The finding of the trial court that Margaret Gudger was free from negligence was against the manifest weight of the evidence and contrary to law.
“ 3. The court erred in overruling the motion of the Stewarts for a new trial.”

The first two assignments of error are interrelated and are considered together. The duty of Mrs. Gudger as she left the Jones driveway is stated in R.C. 4511.44, which provides as follows:

“The operator of a vehicle, streetcar, or trackless trolley about to enter or cross a highway from any place other than another roadway shall yield the right of way to all traffic approaching on the roadway to be entered or crossed.”

A vehicle traveling upon a roadway has the right-of-way to proceed uninterruptedly in preference to a vehicle entering the highway from a private driveway. However, the preference is qualified by the requirement that the vehicle on the roadway must proceed in a lawful manner. The automobile with the preference loses its absolute right to proceed uninterruptedly if it fails to proceed in a lawful manner. Beers v. Wills (1962), 172 Ohio St. 569 [18 O.O.2d 128].

In the case of Humphrey v. Dent (1980), 62 Ohio St. 2d 273 [16 O.O.3d 321], which considered a city ordinance controlling the duties of drivers at an intersection marked by a stop sign, the Supreme Court, at page 276, observed that the driver of an automobile who proceeded through an intersection after stopping for a stop sign “* * * was under a duty to exercise ordinary care to avoid a collision even if the oncoming car was approaching illegally at a high rate of speed. Yet, one does not have to anticipate the negligence of another. * * *” The court also cited with approval, at page 276, the case of Kapp v. Barrett (1915), 216 N.Y. 226, 110 N.E. 428, in which Judge Cardozo stated the basic premise of the law that applies in this case, as follows:

“ ‘* * * [T]he law does not even say that because a pedestrian “sees a wagon approaching, he must stop till it has passed. He may go forward unless it is close upon him; and whether he is negligent in going forward, will be a question for the jury.

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456 N.E.2d 547, 8 Ohio App. 3d 152, 8 Ohio B. 210, 1982 Ohio App. LEXIS 11232, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ohio-casualty-insurance-v-gudger-ohioctapp-1982.