Schleuder v. Soltow

59 N.W.2d 320, 239 Minn. 453, 1953 Minn. LEXIS 648
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJune 12, 1953
DocketNo. 36,023
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 59 N.W.2d 320 (Schleuder v. Soltow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schleuder v. Soltow, 59 N.W.2d 320, 239 Minn. 453, 1953 Minn. LEXIS 648 (Mich. 1953).

Opinion

Dell, Justice.

Defendant appeals from an order denying his alternative motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial.

Trunk highway No. 22 is a two-lane, east-and-west, tarvia, through highway. Acoma Church Road is a gravel, north-and-south highway. The highways intersect at a point four or five miles west of Hutchinson, Minnesota. Trunk highway No. 22 is protected at the intersection by two stop signs on the Acoma Church Road, one on either side of the trunk highway, each located several feet back from the tarvia, the exact distance not being disclosed by the record. At the northeast corner of the intersection, at the time of the accident, was a field of standing corn.

On October 13, 1951, at about four o’clock in the afternoon of a clear day, defendant, 72 years of age, accompanied by his wife, was driving his Chevrolet automobile in a southerly direction on the Acoma Church Road approaching the intersection of said highways. It was defendant’s intention to continue south on the Acoma Church Road. He was familiar with the intersection and knew of the presence of the stop signs. He stopped his automobile before entering the intersection, but the place where he stopped is in dispute.

[455]*455Defendant testified that having stopped he looked to his right and observed that the highway was clear. He then looked to his left and observed two automobiles just having come out of a curve on the trunk highway east of the intersection. One it developed was driven by the witness, Frances Kufrin, and it was followed by plaintiff’s automobile. Defendant saw the plaintiff’s automobile overtake and pass the Kufrin automobile and then turn back into its proper lane on the highway. When he saw the Kufrin and plaintiff’s automobiles to his left, he estimated their distance at “Maybe a thousand feet or so.” In cross-examination he admitted that the distance might have been less. Defendant made no effort to estimate the speed of plaintiff’s automobile and expressed no opinion as to how fast it was going, but he said that he concluded that there was sufficient time for him to cross through the intersection in front of the plaintiff’s automobile.

While defendant was driving through the intersection at approximately 10 or 15 miles an hour, a collision between plaintiff’s and defendant’s automobiles' occurred. After starting across the intersection defendant paid no further attention to plaintiff’s automobile and did not see it again until it was approximately 50 feet from the point of collision, whereupon defendant applied his brakes. Whether, at the time of the collision, his automobile had come to a stop or was still in motion is in dispute.

Plaintiff was seriously injured in the accident. He was rendered unconscious and remained so until the following December. As a result of the accident he suffered a retrograde amnesia and was unable to give any testimony at the trial concerning the happening of the accident or the events preceding it. Plaintiff, however, produced two eyewitnesses, Frances Kufrin and Virginia Beihoffer, who were proceeding in a westerly direction on the trunk highway in a Chevrolet automobile driven by Miss Kufrin. From their testimony it appears that, after they had passed the curve east of the intersection and were on a straight stretch of road, plaintiff overtook them from the rear and passed them. They estimated the speed of their automobile at that time at 45 miles an hour and the [456]*456speed of plaintiff’s Chrysler automobile at 60 miles an hour. After plaintiff’s automobile passed theirs, it returned to its own lane; and thereafter they observed that, when about two blocks or less from the intersection, it turned back into the left lane of the trunk highway. At that time there were no other automobiles on the highway.

The girls next observed defendant’s automobile approaching the intersection at 10 or 15 miles an hour. Miss Beihoffer testified that when she first noticed it was “just coming out back of the corn field * * Miss Kufrin testified that, when she first noticed defendant’s automobile, the two front wheels were on the highway. Both testified that when they first saw defendant’s automobile it was in motion and that it continued in motion until the collision. At the time of the collision they were approximately two blocks from it. They estimated the speed of their automobile at the time of the collision at 45 miles an hour and the speed of plaintiff’s automobile at the time of the collision at 60 miles an hour.

Defendant claimed that at the time of the collision the front part of his automobile had crossed over the tarvia of the trunk highway and was on the graveled road. Miss Kufrin testified that at the time of the collision defendant’s automobile was nearly across the tarvia portion of the trunk highway. At the time of the collision plaintiff’s automobile was south of the center of the trunk highway either just off the south edge of the tarvia on the gravel or partly on the south edge of the tarvia and partly on the gravel. The right front fender and headlight of defendant’s automobile and the right rear side of plaintiff’s automobile collided. The collision was not severe. Plaintiff, however, lost control of his automobile and it left the highway, rolled over two or three times, and came to rest alongside of the trunk highway about 175 to 200 feet west of the place of the collision. Plaintiff was thrown out of his automobile and was found about 60 feet west of it. Defendant’s automobile either continued or was driven south and came tó a stop on the graveled road. There was a verdict for plaintiff of $25,000. No claim is made that the verdict is excessive.

[457]*457The questions raised by this appeal are: (1) Was the evidence sufficient to submit the issue of defendant’s negligence to the jury and is it sufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff? (2) Was the plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence barring recovery? (3) Did the court err in its rulings on evidence at the trial and in its failure to give an instruction based upon M. S. A. 169.14, subd. -3, first requested by defendant at the close of the arguments of counsel to the jury?

In deciding whether the evidence was sufficient to submit the issue of defendant’s negligence to the jury and sufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff, we are required to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict.2 The defendant approaching an intersection of a through highway protected by ■stop signs was subject to and controlled by § 169.20, subd. 3, which provides in part as follows:

“The driver of a vehicle shall stop as required by this chapter <at the entrance to a through highway and shall yield the right of way to other vehicles which have entered the intersection from the through highway or which are approaching so closely on the through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard, but the driver having ■■so yielded may proceed, and the drivers of all other vehicles approaching the intersection on the through highway shall yield the Tight of way to the vehicles so proceeding into or across the through highway.” (Italics supplied.)

It was not only defendant’s duty to stop before entering the intersection but it was his duty to stop at a point where he could effectively observe what traffic was approaching upon the through highway.3

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Bluebook (online)
59 N.W.2d 320, 239 Minn. 453, 1953 Minn. LEXIS 648, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schleuder-v-soltow-minn-1953.