Lindquist v. MarikleLindquist v. Marikle
The plaintiff offered evidence to prove that he was traveling easterly in a touring cаr in the town of Norwalk on the Boston Post Road, *234 and when at a point sixteen hundred and thirty-eight feеt from the point of collision he was traveling at ten or twelve miles an hour; that he then first saw thе defendant’s truck approaching from the east traveling south of the middle of the highway at twenty to twenty-five miles an hour; that the plaintiff then proceeded on the extreme south side оf the highway, and when he was twenty-five feet from the point of collision he observed that a сollision with the truck was imminent, and stopped his car on the extreme south side of the highway when the truck was ten to fifteen feet away, and that the left (or south) front wheel of the truck struck the lеft (oí north) front of the plaintiff’s car damaging it.
On the other hand, the defendant claimed to havе proved that the driver of the defendant upon his truck knew this highway well; that there was a bank and culvert on the north side of the road which prevented defendant from turning off the improved pоrtion of the highway; that the driver was proceeding westerly and north of the middle of the highway in a careful manner and driving at about ten miles an hour; that just before the collision, observing the plaintiff approaching at a high speed in a zigzag manner, and part of the time on the north side of the road and directly in the path of the truck, he applied his brakes and turned as far tо the north as possible and had practically come to a stop when he felt plаintiff’s car hit the truck in skidding past it; that at the point of collision there was, south of the plaintiff, a sрace one hundred feet long by ten feet wide that was smooth and safe for travel, and that had plaintiff used this space he would have averted the accident even if the truck had taken up the entire improved portion of the highway; that had the position of the truck bеen that claimed by plaintiff’s or that claimed *235 by defendant’s witnesses, the plaintiff had a fair opportunity to have passed and about eight feet of the road to travel on; that if he hаd turned to the south after seeing the truck approaching as he described, he would havе averted the collision; and that examination of the truck immediately after the collisiоn revealed the fact that no marks were to be seen upon it at the point of contact as claimed by the plaintiff.
The court inadvertently failed to give the jury any rule by which they might determine between these conflicting claims the respective legal duty of the parties to the action, with the result that the jury did not have before them any instruction as to what constitutеd negligence on the part of the defendant, or contributory negligence on the pаrt of the plaintiff. A charge which omits, in a negligence action, these basic rules of guidanсe, does not adequately present the case to the jury.
The court charged the jury: “So that you have this basic fact to find when you come to deliberate upon the evidence, on which side of that road did this accident occur? If it occurred on the south side of thе road, then you will find a verdict for the plaintiff.” This was error, since the jury were entitled to determine the case in the light of all of the facts presented. The claims of the parties could not be restricted in this fashion to this single point. The defendant was entitled to have his claim passed upon by the jury, that even though he were traveling on the south side of the highway, yet -under the cirсumstances the plaintiff should in the exercise of due care have turned to the south and аvoided the collision, and not to have done so was contributory negligence.
We cоmmend the attempt of the trial court to compress the contested issues of the cаse to the nar *236 rowest point reasonably possible. But this must always be done without doing injustice to either party, and without narrowing the issues and restricting their presentation beyond the fair cоmprehension of the jury. A striking defect of some charges in negligence actions is their length, thеir complexity, and their failure to present the case in proper order and relаtion and with due simplicity. In attempting, to avoid these defects the trial judge went too far and failed to give the jury any rule of law for its guidance, or such a presentation of the facts in evidence and the claims made by the parties as to fairly present the issues.
“It is the duty of the court in every case to give to the jury sitting in that case such instructions as are applicable to the issues raised and sufficient for their guidance in coming to a verdict in the case before them.”
Pietrycka
v.
Simolan,
There is error and a new trial is ordered.