Baker v. Baker

³⁵² Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal by Robert Baker, one of the defendants below, from a judgment entered upon a jury’s verdict in the Baltimore City Court in favor of his brother, Donald E. Baker, plaintiff below and appellee here. The verdict was also against Edward James Coates and Paper Coating and Converting Company, Inc., co-defendants. The latter two defendants appealed but dismissed their appeals.

Robert Baker’s appeal is founded upon the failure of the trial court to direct a verdict in his favor upon application seasonably made at the close of the plaintiff’s case and renewed at the close of all the evidence, and upon motion for judgment n.o.v. or for a new trial as subsequently made; and upon the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury that there was no legally sufficient evidence in the case that the appellant was operating his vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor immediately before the accident for which suit was brought. Robert Baker was driving his car in an easterly direction on Central Avenue in the Seat Pleasant area of Prince George’s County, approaching its intersection with 86th Avenue. This intersection is in the form of a “T”, with Central Avenue the head and 86th Avenue the shaft of the “T”. Traffic entering Central Avenue from 86th Avenue is controlled by a stop sign.

A hill on Central Avenue is 171 feet west of the intersection. Central Avenue at the time of the accident was blacktop macadam, with one lane in each direction, and had a posted speed limit of fifty miles per hour. The accident occurred in the early afternoon of March 25, 1960, on a clear and sunny day. Passengers in the car were Kathryn Dancha, sitting next to the driver, and appellee to her right.

Appellant testified that as he came over the crest of the hill he saw a truck, operated by the defendant Coates. It displayed no turn signals, but approximately seventy-five or eighty feet from the intersection the truck made a left turn into 86th Avenue in front of him blocking his entire lane of travel. He applied the brakes, turned the car to the left, shouted to his brother whom he grabbed by the shoulder and pulled down on the seat. The point of impact between the two vehicles was the ³⁵³ right rear of the truck and the right side of appellant’s car.

He stated that he was familiar with the intersection since he had lived in the area prior to the time of the accident. Coates, the driver of the truck, testified that before beginning his turn into 86th Avenue he brought his truck to a standstill, with the turn signals on, at which time he did not see any traffic approaching from the west on Central Avenue. He then began his turn, proceeded a distance of five feet when he again looked west and still did not see any traffic approaching. Coates described his truck as being a two and one-half ton, van type model, about seven feet wide and twenty-five feet long.

Donald Baker’s testimony was not consistent. At one time he said that when he first saw the truck, it was about one-quarter of the way across the road; at another time, that when he first saw it, it was entirely in its lane; and at still another, that he vaguely remembered seeing it in its lane and then saw it turn. Kathryn Dancha, now appellant’s wife, was also inconsistent as to the position of the truck in the