Campfield v. Crowther

Barnes, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a judgment of $100,000 entered in favor of Paul James Crowther, the appellee and plaintiff below, against the appellants John W. Campfield and Chancy Daniel Hill, defendants below, by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County (Meloy, J.) upon a verdict by the jury for $175,000, later reduced to $100,000, in an action by Crowther to recover for personal injuries resulting from an automobile accident on Maryland Route 301 in the early morning hours of February 16, 1964. Inasmuch as the plaintiff Crowther recovered a verdict below, we must review the facts in the light most favorable to him, where those facts are in dispute or where more than one inference may reasonably be drawn from them. Cassell v. Pfaifer, 243 Md. 447, 453 , 221 A. 2d 668, 671 (1966).

Hill, aged 17, whose license to operate a motor vehicle had been revoked, went to the Hideaway Restaurant and Bar in Prince George’s County, with Campfield, aged 19, in Camp-field’s automobile. Campfield, who knew that Hill’s license had been revoked, picked Hill up at Hill’s home early in the evening of February 15, thereafter obtained a six pack of beer and they had a few beers. Hill testified that he had not eaten since the previous day. Around 10:00 p.m. they went to the Hideaway Restaurant to have some drinks and dance with the girls they might meet there.

Hill was “feeling the beer” before he arrived at the Hideaway Restaurant. Although he had nothing to eat at the restaurant, he had more beer and some “screwdrivers,” which Hill said he did not know contained alcohol. In any event, Hill became intoxicated. When the two lads arrived at the Hideaway Restaurant, Campfield left the automobile keys in the ignition.

During the evening Campfield told ⁹¹ Hill that he was leaving the bar with a girl, and that Hill could drive the car home if Campfield did not return. Campfield left the Hideaway at some point during the evening. Sometime after 1:00 a.m., Hill, who was quite intoxicated and had difficulty in maintaining his balance, left the Hideaway, and after regurgitating several times, went to Campfield’s automobile to lie down on the front seat. He went to sleep there and after a while heard horns blowing.

When he awakened he realized that Camp-field’s automobile was parked in an alleyway and a truck wanted to get by it. Pie then backed the car out of the parking place, pulled on to the road that runs in front of it, and started down the road looking for a place to turn around. Mill remembered trying to hold the car on the road but nothing further until he woke up in the hospital. The plaintiff Crowther was driving south on Route 301 when his automobile was sideswiped by a vehicle traveling north and attempting to pass other northbound vehicles.

After the impact, the passing northbound automobile proceeded a short distance down the highway and then turned around in a used car lot and stopped. Crowther, who had stopped his car, then left it, crossed to the opposite or east shoulder of the highway and began to run north on the shoulder toward the other stopped vehicle. As Crowther neared the other car, it suddenly moved from its stopped position and then went forward in a southerly direction on the northbound lane and shoulder of the highway. Crowther attempted to jump out of the way, but was struck, went tinder the car and w'as pinned there.

Crowther was dragged a considerable distance down the road and was severely injured. A witness to the accident gave the police a description of the automobile and its license number. The Campfield car was recovered shortly thereafter, and Crowther was taken to the hospital. Hill testified that after the accident Campfield visited hint and requested Hill to state that he took the car keys from Campfield’s jacket, but that Hill refused to do this “because it was not true.” Campfield denied this episode, testified that he had not left the keys in the ignition but in his jacket pocket, that he had left his jacket in the car and that when Campfield left the Hideaway Restaurant, both Hill and his automobile were gone.

As we have indicated, we must accept the version ⁹² of the facts most favorable to the plaintiff Crowther. Camp-field admitted that Hill was “pretty well loaded” and as we have indicated, Campfield was aware that Hill’s license had been revoked. Five questions are presented to us. Campfield presents the following questions: 1.

Did the trial court err in declining to submit to the jury the issue of Crowther’s contributory negligence? (Hill joins in submitting this question to us.) 2. Did the trial court err in refusing Campfield’s motion for a directed verdict on the ground that Hill’s acts were intentional, willful, premeditated and malicious ? 3. Did the trial court err in refusing Campfield’s motion for a directed verdict on the ground that there was no evidence legally sufficient to support a jury finding that Hill was Camp-field’s agent ?

Hill presents the following additional two questions: 4. Did the trial court err in refusing Hill’s motion for a directed verdict on the ground that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that Hill was behind the wheel of the vehicle that struck Crowther and, in any event, in instructing the jury that Hill was guilty of negligence as a matter of law ? 5. Did the trial court err in admitting evidence in regard to alleged pleas of guilty by Hill at the hearing of the traffic case ? In our opinion, the trial court committed no reversible error and the judgment will be affirmed. 1.

At the end of the testimony in the case, the trial court granted the motion of the plaintiff Crowther that Hill was guilty of negligence as a matter of law and that Crowther was not guilty of any contributory negligence. Campfield duly excepted to the trial court’s instruction to the jury in accordance with its ruling on Crowther’s motion. Campfield properly observes that ordinarily the issue of contributory negligence is for the jury. Williamson Truck Lines, Inc. v. Benjamin, 244 Md. 1, 8 , 222 A. 2d 375, 379 (1966).

It is only when the minds of reasonable persons cannot differ on the issue of contributory negligence, that the trial court is ⁹³ justified in deciding the issue as a matter of law. As Judge Horney, for the Court, aptly stated in Wiggins v. State, 232 Md. 228, 237 , 192 A. 2d 515, 520-21 (1963) : “The absence or presence of contributory negligence is generally a question for the jury. Jackson v. Forwood, 186 Md. 379 , 47 A. 2d 81 (1946). It is only where the minds of reasonable persons cannot differ that the court is justified in deciding the question as a matter of law.

Brown v. Bendix Aviation Corp., 187 Md. 613 , 51 A. 2d 292 (1947) ; Thomas v. Baltimore Transit Co., 211 Md. 262 , 127 A. 2d 128 (1956) ; Boyd v. Simpler, 222 Md. 126, 158 A. 2d 666 (1960). And if there is no evidence of acts or conduct from which reasonable minds could find or infer negligence on the part of a plaintiff, it would be error not to withdraw the issue of contributory negligence from the consideration of the jury. Lindenberg v. Needles, 203 Md. 8 , 97 A. 2d 901 (1953) ; Thomas v. Baltimore Transit Co., supra.” Contributory negligence is the neglect of the duty imposed upon all men to observe ordinary care for their own safety. It is the doing of something that a person of ordinary prudence would not do, or the failure to do something that a person of ordinary prudence would do, under the circumstances.

Baltimore County v. State, 232 Md. 350, 362 , 193 A. 2d 30, 37 (1963). The conduct of the plaintiff which falls below this standard of care must be a legally contributing cause cooperating with the defendant’s negligence in bringing about injury to the plaintiff. Craig v. Greenbelt Consumer Services, Inc., 244 Md. 95, 97 , 222 A. 2d 836, 837 (1966). The plaintiff, however, is not bound to anticipate every possible injury which might occur and every possible eventuality.

As Judge (now Chief Judge) Hammond stated, for the Court, in Sanders v. Williams, 209 Md. 149, 152 , 120 A. 2d 397, 398 (1956) : “As is true of primary negligence, one measure of contributory negligence is the need, in a given situation, to anticipate danger. Presence or absence of rea ⁹⁴ sonable foresight is an essential part of the concept. One is charged with notice of what a reasonably and ordinarily prudent person would have foreseen and so must foresee what common experience tells may, in all likelihood, occur, and to anticipate' and guard against what usually happens. On the other hand, one is not bound to anticipate every possible injury that may occur or every possible eventuality.” In the present case, the evidence established that the defendant Hill sideswiped the plaintiff Crowther’s vehicle while Hill was attempting to pass other northbound automobiles.

Crowther stopped his automobile and then left it to obtain the license number of the Hill vehicle — a normal reaction for a reasonable person involved in an accident. When Crowther approached the Hill vehicle it was completely stopped. Then, suddenly and without warning, the Hill vehicle moved from its stopped position, traveled in a southerly direction on the northbound lane and shoulder, striking Crowther. Crowther, as a reasonably prudent man, was not required to anticipate that Hill would suddenly drive the wrong way down the wrong side of the highway.

Even if we were to assume that Crowther should have known that the driver of the vehicle which struck him was intoxicated, he cannot be charged with foreseeing the occurrence of such extraordinary behavior. The sole and proximate cause of the injury to Crowther was the negligent act of Hill in operating the automobile down the wrong side of the highway and on its shoulder, and, as we have said, Crowther was under no duty to anticipate or foresee that this event was likely to happen. Both Campfield and Hill contend that a reasonably prudent person would not leave the safety of his automobile and approach the Hill automobile just after it had sideswiped his vehicle. If Crowther had been struck by a vehicle proceeding normally on the highway while he was crossing the highway there might be force to this argument but, as we have seen, this is not what happened in the present case.

In our opinion, under the unusual facts in the instant case, the trial court properly instructed the jury that Crowther was not negligent as a matter of law. ⁹⁵ 2. The defendant Campfield moved for a directed verdict in his favor on the count in the declaration alleging negligent entrustment on the ground that Hill had intentionally struck Crowther, relying upon the statement of our predecessors in Adams v. Carey, 172 Md. 173, 186 , 190 A. 815, 821 (1937) that “[I]f the tortious act is intentional, it may be willful, wanton, or fraudulent, but not negligent * * Although the statement is correct as an abstract statement of law, there is no evidence in the present case sufficient to support a finding of intentional injury as a matter of law. On the contrary, the evidence establishes that Hill had been drinking, on an empty stomach, for a number of hours and was so intoxicated that he had become almost unconscious. After his recollection of driving the automobile to get it out of the alley and trying to hold the car on the road, he had no recollection of subsequent events until he awoke in the hospital.

There is no evidence in the case that Hill ever saw Crowther prior to striking him, or ever formed any intent in regard to him, so that there was no evidence in the case that Hill intentionally sought to run him down. On the contrary, the evidence is totally consistent with the conclusion that Hill was merely acting recklessly and negligently, however gross that negligence might be. The trial court properly denied Camp-field’s motion for a directed verdict on the ground of intentional injury by Hill. Campfield also contended that even if the trial court were correct in refusing his motion for a directed verdict on this, ground, it should at least have submitted this issue to the jury as a special issue as Campfield requested.

This matter is in the sound discretion of the trial court, under Maryland Rule 560, and we will only reverse the trial court’s action if there is an abuse of discretion. Smith v. Branscome, 251 Md. 582 , 248 A. 2d 455 (1968). In our opinion there was no abuse of discretion by the trial court in declining to submit the special