Stepp v. Rainwater

373 S.W.2d 162, 1963 Mo. App. LEXIS 432
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 2, 1963
DocketNo. 23909
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 373 S.W.2d 162 (Stepp v. Rainwater) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stepp v. Rainwater, 373 S.W.2d 162, 1963 Mo. App. LEXIS 432 (Mo. Ct. App. 1963).

Opinion

MAUGHMER, Commissioner.

Suit for personal injuries arising from an automobile accident. Three vehicles were involved. Each car was occupied only by its driver. There were no other eyewitnesses. The verdict and judgment were for plaintiff-respondent Florence Ruth Stepp and against the two codefendants in the sum of $18,250. While an appeal by both defendants was pending before the Supreme Court, plaintiff filed her satisfaction of one-half of the judgment and released the defendant Carl Herbert Hol-stad. By so doing the remaining and outstanding judgment against the defendant H. D. Rainwater was reduced to $9,125, and appellate jurisdiction vested in this court. Defendant’s motion to transfer the appeal was sustained and the cause has been duly transferred. The only present contestants are the plaintiff Stepp and the appellant Rainwater.

The accident occurred about 5:00 p. m. July 6, 1961, on East-West Highway K-150 in Johnson County, Kansas. At the scene, K-150 is a two-lane black-top highway, 24 feet in width and with shoulders 8 feet wide. The highway was damp and wet from intermittent rain.

When the accident occurred the plaintiff was 28 years of age, married and employed in the office of the Collector of Internal Revenue in Kansas City. She was returning from work, was on the way to her home in Olathe, Kansas, driving her 1960 Valiant automobile and proceeding west on Highway K-150. From Roe Boulevard, which enters the highway from the north, the view to the west is unobstructed for approximately one mile. The accident took place about l/10th mile west of Roe Boulevard. From the scene on west, there is a slight downgrade and the view is unobstructed for at least one half mile. Plaintiff testified that as she traveled west toward the scene she was moving 40 to 45 miles per hour, when she saw the Rainwater green 1950 Chevrolet parked on the north shoulder and headed west. She said that as she drew near she observed Rainwater “pull onto the highway and go to the left. It looked to me like he was attempting to make a U-turn. I applied my brakes and slowed the car down to give him plenty of room to clear my path”. She said defendant cleared her lane and turned toward the east. She then for the first time saw what proved to be Holstad’s 1953 Mercury automobile “skidding down the highway and it was coming backwards”, “going about 70 to 75 miles an hour”. “He was over the center line and into the west-bound lane and the back end of his car was coming at my car”. She stated that when she first saw the Holstad car she applied her brakes and tried to turn to the right, but within a second or a little more, the car struck. Mrs. Stepp’s face hit the windshield and she received facial cuts and lacerations. Appellant makes no complaint as to the amount of the judgment and has not included in the transcript the medical evidence of plaintiff — either her own testimony or that of her doctors. Therefore we shall make no further reference to her injuries.

When the cars came to rest plaintiff’s Valiant was in the north lane, partly on the shoulder and headed west. Holstad’s Mercury was just west of the Valiant and likewise pointed toward the west. There is complete disagreement as to the location of Rainwater’s automobile just after the accident. Mr. Rainwater says he was west of the scene and headed west. Holstad and Mrs. Stepp declared that Rainwater had skidded on the roadway, turned from west to east and was headed east after the accident.

The testimony of the codefendant Hol-stad was that he was proceeding east at about 45 miles per hour, he first saw the Rainwater car when it was 11 or 12 car [164]*164lengths away, partially on the right shoulder, headed west and moving at a speed of about 10 miles per hour. He said Rainwater appeared to be trying to move onto the highway from the shoulder; that when the vehicles were about 6 car lengths apart, Rainwater headed southwest and across the center line; that in an effort to avoid hitting Rainwater, he turned left into the westbound lane, whereupon his car skidded and moved backwards and eastward at a speed of about 5 miles per hour and his rear was hit head-on by plaintiff’s Valiant. He said he asked Rainwater after the accident why he had turned in front of him and Rainwater replied that he did not know; that it was not his (Holstad’s) fault and said: “There was no way you could have avoided that”. Holstad said Rainwater finally completed his turn, that his car was headed east, and immediately after the accident he saw the Chevrolet “headed east and parked on the south side of the road”.

Richard A. Darnell and John Persell, Deputy Sheriffs of Johnson County, reached the scene at 5:13 p. m., a few minutes after the occurrence. Darnell observed the Valiant and Mercury standing in the westbound lane. Both were extensively damaged. Darnell said it was physically impossible to make a U-turn with a 1961 Chevrolet on a highway 24 feet wide without backing up. Officer Persell talked with plaintiff in the hospital. He said she told him “ * * * all I could remember at that time was seeing this Mercury coming backwards at me”. The deputies’ written accident report referred to Rainwater’s car as “Car No. 3”. It was included in their report because Holstad had stated that it slid and was “crosswise in the road in front of him”.

Frank Kohler, Police Sergeant, commanding the Johnson County Safety Education Unit, stated that the turning radius of a 1950 Chevrolet is 38j4 feet and it could not be turned on a roadway 24 feet in width.

The defendant Rainwater gave his description of the accident. It was his testimony that he was driving west at about 35 miles per hour when a white Chevrolet “started around me” and cut in toward him, “I thought either he was trying to run me off the road or something and I pulled over and onto the shoulder and parked with my right wheels off the pavement”. He saw the Mercury about 500 feet to the west and pulled back onto the highway but he said his right rear wheel caught on the edge of the highway and skidded. He said he got back onto the west lane and met and passed the Mercury which was partly in the west lane. He later heard a crash, looked back and then turned his car around and went back to the scene. Seven days after the accident Rainwater signed a statement which included the following: “My right wheels dropped off the edge of the pavement and I started skidding. The front of my car started heading to the eastbound lane. My right rear wheel was caught on the edge of the pavement”.

Helen Potter of Olathe, a friend of Mrs. Stepp, came onto the scene shortly after the event. She said there were only three cars in the vicinity when she arrived and she fixed the location of each as follows: Mrs. Stepp’s car “was setting on the north side of the road, just like she had stopped there”, “she was going west”. Mr. Holstad’s vehicle was right in front of Stepp’s “kind of in the middle, it was over the line” and pointed west. She said the third automobile, a 1950 green Chevrolet, was “on the south side of the highway, headed east, kind of off on the shoulder over there”.

Appellant assigns as error the refusal of the trial court to sustain his motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence. He says this was error because even though the testimony of plaintiff and Hol-stad that Rainwater made the U-turn would amount to submissible negligence, nevertheless, it was impossible for the green Chevrolet to make a U-turn on a 24 foot highway, hence the testimony that he did so is so unreasonable and contrary to the [165]

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373 S.W.2d 162, 1963 Mo. App. LEXIS 432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stepp-v-rainwater-moctapp-1963.