Opinion
No. 41228.
November 29, 1968.
Automobiles — negligence of driver — failure to keep proper lookout.
Action in the Hennepin County Municipal Court for property damage allegedly sustained by plaintiff when her automobile collided with one owned by defendant John D. Bleecker and operated by defendant Zita K. Bleecker. Defendant John Bleecker counterclaimed for property damage. The case was tried before Edwin P. Chapman, Judge, and a jury, which found in a special verdict that defendant driver's negligence caused the accident. The court ordered judgment for plaintiff for stipulated damages, but later amended the findings to allow only defendant bailor to recover stipulated damages, and plaintiff appealed from said order. Affirmed.
Coulter Nelson and Paul F. Gilles, for appellant.
Don E. Roberts, for respondents.
Heard before Knutson, C. J., and Otis, Rogosheske, Sheran, and Peterson, JJ.
Two automobiles, one driven by plaintiff and the other driven by defendant Zita K. Bleecker and owned by defendant John D. Bleecker, her husband-bailor, collided in an intersection located upon the parking lot of Southdale Square in Richfield. Plaintiff was proceeding north in the parking lot lane running north and south, and defendant driver was proceeding east in the east-west intersecting lane. Both drivers approached the intersection at approximately the same time and speed. Upon reciprocal claims limited by the parties to failure to keep a proper lookout, improper control, and possibly speed, a municipal court jury, by special verdict, found defendant driver negligent and such negligence to be a proximate cause of the collision, and that plaintiff was free of negligence. No motions for directed verdict were made at trial. The parties, as well as the court, chose to disregard the possible application of any statutory rules relating to right-of-way, presumably on the assumption that such provisions had no direct or indirect application to an intersection collision occurring on private property.
See, Zarzecki v. Hatch, 347 Mich. 138, 79 N.W.2d 605, 62 A.L.R. 2d 284.
The municipal court granted defendants' post-trial motion for judgment n. o. v. on the ground that plaintiff was negligent as a matter of law in failing to keep proper lookout, and that such negligence concurred with defendant driver's negligence to cause the collision. Thus, defendant bailor was entitled to recover the stipulated damages to his vehicle.
See, Christensen v. Hennepin Transp. Co. Inc. 215 Minn. 394, 10 N.W.2d 406, 147 A.L.R. 945.
From our examination of the testimony and consideration of the trial court's explanatory memorandum, we are persuaded this is one of those cases where, viewed from the trial judge's vantage point, rejecting the jury's finding and holding plaintiff negligent as to lookout was compelled, as the trial court concluded, by "[t]he uncontradicted, clear and convincing and believable testimony of the plaintiff on direct examination, as well as fortified by cross examination," to the effect that she failed to make reasonable observations before entering an intersection with which she was familiar and which she knew to be dangerous.
Affirmed.