Bavis v. Fonte

Prescott, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The facts involved in this appeal are not complex, and the issue presented is a narrow one. ¹²⁵ The original suit was filed against the appellee and the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. This appeal involves only the claim against Fonte. Plaintiff was a guest passenger in an automobile owned and operated by the appellee, who had been proceeding at a reasonable speed and driving cautiously.

Suddenly, while driving along a 40-foot wide one-way, well-lighted street in Baltimore City on a wet, cloudy morning, the driver-defendant, at about 2:10 a.m. on April 8, 1962, failed to negotiate a slight curve, struck the right curb, went over the curb (nearly seven inches high) and a sidewalk of some thirteen feet in width, and crashed into an electric light pole located about 62 feet from where the vehicle had struck the curb. Plaintiff and the operator were the only occupants of the car at the time of the accident, which resulted in personal injuries to the plaintiff. At the trial, plaintiff offered testimony in support of the above facts, and also introduced an oral statement made by the defendant to a police officer to the effect that an unidentified vehicle overtook him (Fonte) from the rear and forced him to his right where he hit and jumped the curb. The plaintiff testified he was sitting beside Fonte, talking with him and looking at him and the road, and he (the plaintiff), at no time, saw any car overtake and force Fonte into the curb.

The defendant offered no testimony, but counsel moved for a directed verdict in his favor, which was granted, and the case taken from the jury. Plaintiff disavows any reliance upon the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. The learned trial judge based her conclusion to take the case from the jury upon the fact that “the testimony fails to establish even the slightest scintilla of evidence of negligence on the