Young v. Dunlap

190 S.W. 1041, 195 Mo. App. 119, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 137
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 30, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 190 S.W. 1041 (Young v. Dunlap) 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
Young v. Dunlap, 190 S.W. 1041, 195 Mo. App. 119, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 137 (Mo. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

ELLISON, P. J.

Plaintiff’s action was instituted to recover damages for personal injury received in a collision between an automobile being driven by ber husband and one being driven by defendant. She recovered judgment in the circuit court.

Defendant’s first objection to the judgment is that the verdict upon which it was rendered is not supported by the evidence in the case. In passing upon that question we need only examine the evidence given in plaintiff’s behalf, together with the physical facts disclosed.

That a collision occurred, at eleven o’clock at night, between the two machines at the intersection of Brush Creek Boulevard and Rock Hill Boulevard in Kansas City, while plaintiff was being driven north on Rock Hill Boulevard and defendant driving east on Brush Creek Boulevard, is not disputed. But wnich car was run into the other, and which party was at fault, is made a matter of sharp contest in briefs, printed and oral arguments.

[121]*121Plaintiff’s machine, that is, the machine in which she was being driven, was much the smaller and lighter of the two. The rubber tire on her machine was a thirty-three inch tire, while defendant’s was a thirty-seven inch. Defendant on his way east was running slightly down grade from thirty-five to sixty miles per hour, while defendant’s machine was going up grade at the rate of ten or twelve miles. We think the greater rate stated for the former machine was exaggerated; but it is clear that the jury were authorized to believe it was under high speed.

Plaintiff’s husband first observed defendant coming east on Brush Creek when the latter was about one hundred and fifty feet away and this was as the former “was entering the street,” that is, was enxering into the intersection of the two streets. The collision was at the center. The streets were fifty feet in width, so that while plaintiff was' running twenty-five feet to the center, defendant ran one hundred and fifty feet to the same point. When plaintiff’s husband observed a collision was imminent he attempted to turn from his northern course to the north-east, which had the effect of throwing his left or west front wheel at an outward angle from the body of the car, when defendant crashed into his car dragging it near twenty feet before stopping. The right front wheel of defendant’s car caught in between the left front wheel of plaintiff’s and plunged over the axle, breaking down the wheel, and into the engine shield. It was so wedged into plaintiff’s car that it required considerable effort to get them apart. Pieces of rubber were found in the engine shield on plaintiff’s car in the track of defendant’s wheel. The right foot board of defendant’s car was broken by the collision and also in getting the cars apart.

The trend of a great part of defendant’s suggestions and argument is to the effect that the matters stated in testimony in plaintiff’s behalf for proof of her case are so incredible and unreasonable that they should not be believed. While some statements made in testimony may be exaggerated, and some comparisons may not be apt, [122]*122the general evidence in support of her case is reasonable in its appearance and, if credited by a jury, would entitle her to a verdict. The question on a challenge to a plaintiff’s case, should not be whether some parts of the testimony are incredible, but rather, whether the whole evidence, considered in its entirety, embraces sufficient fact to make out a case.

But the principal attack on the case, is based on the ground that the evidence-in plaintiff’s behalf embraces what has come to be known as “physical facts,” which it is said overthrow the story of the occurrence as detailed by the witnesses in her behalf. We have carefully examined this phase of the case and find that defendant’s position is not sustained by the record. The testimony for plaintiff clearly shows the conditions leading immediately to the collision and there is nothing unreasonable on the face of it. Nor is the manner of the collision itself unbelievable. As we have already stated plaintiff’s husband, in the smaller car at slow speed, attempted to avoid defendant’s rapidly oncoming larger car at high speed, by turning to the right, thus exposing the side of his car at an angle and defendant crashed into it by going over the front axle, crushing the front wheel and breaking into the light metal shield of the engine. It serves no purpose, after verdict, to discuss the condition of defendant’s car: That was a question for the jury. The fact that a car may appear to be wrecked, does not conclusively show that it was not the offending machine in the collision. We conclude the trial court rightly held the case to be for the jury.

Yery properly there were not many instructions in the case; but there was serious error in some of these. The petition charged that defendant saw, or, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have seen plaintiff and the automobile in which she was riding “in a position of peril in front of defendant’s automobile in time, by the exercise of ordinary care to have stopped, or slackened the speed, or to have turned to one side,” and thereby avoided the collision etc. It will be noticed that the position in which plaintiff was alleged to be and the [123]*123peril in which she was charged to he, and the position in which it is alleged defendant could have seen her, are in front of his machine. Instruction No. 1 for plaintiff ignores these allegations in toto, and authorizes a finding for plaintiff if plaintiff’s position was anywhere within the intersection of the streets. This is not a mere technical objection when it is remembered that the collision was in the nighttime when one might very easily see an object in his front, yet he might not be able, the situation considered, to see an object approaching from one side.. The instruction should not be broader than the petition, whatever may be the scope of the evidence. [Scrivner v. Railroad, 260 Mo. 421, 432; Degonia v. Railroad, 224 Mo. 554, 589; Ruch v. Prior (decided this term) and other cases cited by defendant.] As adding emphasis to the substantial nature of this objection to the instruction, we think the jury could very well have believed from the evidence that after defendant discovered (and there is where his culpability must lie) plaintiff’s machine in front of his, he had not time to avoid the collision.

Plaintiff pleaded an ordinance of the city regulating the speed of automobiles approaching intersecting streets. The occurrence in controversy transpired on the night of the 18th of December, 1913; while the ordinance introduced was not adopted and in force until the following July. Prom this it is manifest that it should not have had any place in the case.

Bnt plaintiff insists that the date of the ordinance must have been a mistake of the stenographer, or of the deputy city clerk, who was the witness with the ordinance in his possession. It would put the détermination of cases in appellate courts in great peril if we were to allow a statement of that nature to overturn the facts set forth in the record. The record is absolute verity to us. [White v. Railroad, 178 S. W. 83.] Again, it is said that the deputy clerk testified that he thought the ordinance was in force on the 18th of December, 1913. But he likewise qualified that statement by saying what the ordinance would show. If he had made the flat [124]*124verbal statement of time when the ordinance was in force, we do not see how that should be allowed to control the ordinance itself which was there present.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
190 S.W. 1041, 195 Mo. App. 119, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 137, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/young-v-dunlap-moctapp-1916.