Home/Wisconsin Supreme Court/Stewart v. Meyer

Stewart v. Meyer

247 N.W. 316, 211 Wis. 347, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 181
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedMay 9, 1933
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 247 N.W. 316 (Stewart v. Meyer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stewart v. Meyer, 247 N.W. 316, 211 Wis. 347, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 181 (Wis. 1933).

Opinion

The following opinion was filed March 7, 1933 :

Rosenberry, C. J.

The contentions of the respective parties to these cases present a rather unusual situation. The plaintiffs contend that Matt Clement, the driver of the Whippet coach, was proceeding on his right-hand side of the road east of the black center line, in a careful manner, driving his car at a speed not greater than fifteen miles per hour and near the shoulder on the east side; that his car was under perfect control and that it did not skid nor slide; that the defendant’s truck, driven by Marsh, was straddling, the center line and partially on the east side, its left side of the traveled portion of the highway, and that it struck the Whippet coach on the left-hand side of the Whippet coach, driving it back thirty or forty feet into the position in which ■it came to rest. There is no dispute as to what occurred after the impact. The sole controversy relates to the relative positions of the truck and the coach immediately prior to the impact.

It is the contention of the defendant Meyer that the truck was traveling at an ordinary rate of speed and on the west side, its right side of the highway; that when the Whippet coach was about thirty feet from the truck, the coach suddenly skidded to its left side or the west side of the highway in front of the oncoming truck and had started back towards its right side and was crossways in the road directly across the path of the truck when the front end of the truck hit it squarely in the side; that after the impact the cars came to rest as heretofore described.

There is no doubt, considering solely the evidence received upon the trial from the mouths of witnesses, that a verdict of the jury which found for either of the parties would be sustained by such evidence. Having regard to such evidence [350]*350alone, whatever the conclusion of this court might be as to which of the claims was supported by the preponderance of the evidence, the court would still be obliged to say there was sufficient credible evidence to sustain a finding the other way.

What we are asked to do in this case is to say that the evidence presents two wholly inconsistent theories or explanations of the manner in which the damage to the Whippet coach was sustained, that one contention cannot be partly true and the other contention partly true, that one is exclusive of the other; that an examination of the injuries sustained by the truck and the coach and their relative positions after the vehicles came to rest, after the collision, is so inconsistent with plaintiffs’ explanation of the accident as to render the statements made by the witnesses wholly incredible. Photographs of the Whippet and the truck taken shortly after the accident are reproduced herewith.

[351]*351

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Related

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230 N.W.2d 839 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1975)
Behling v. Lohman
141 N.W.2d 203 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1966)
Pagel v. Holewinski
106 N.W.2d 425 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1960)
Heibel v. Voth
73 N.W.2d 421 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1955)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
247 N.W. 316, 211 Wis. 347, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stewart-v-meyer-wis-1933.