Hardy v. Sandler

Barnes, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. ⁶²³ The appellant, Russell Hardy, Sr., plaintiff below, brought an action against the appellee, Julius Sandler, in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County to recover damages resulting from a collision of the plaintiff’s automobile with that owned by the defendant and operated by the defendant’s sixteen year old son, Daniel L. Sandler. The case came on for trial before Judge Pugh and a jury. At the end of the plaintiff’s case, the trial court directed a verdict in favor of the defendant because, in the trial court’s opinion, the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. In our opinion, the trial court was correct in this ruling, and the judgment entered for the defendant for costs will be affirmed.

The plaintiff testified that about 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, May 10, 1964, a clear, dry day, he drove his four-door Ford sedan west on Colesville Road in Silver Spring toward 16th Street and arrived at a stop sign on the north side of Colesville Road for westbound traffic. He came to a stop. He looked down 16th Street and saw it was clear of approaching traffic. He then began to move his vehicle across 16th Street and when about three-fourths through the intersection, he noticed the defendant’s automobile, driven by Daniel, about 150' feet from his automobile coming from the south at a “very high speed.” The defendant’s automobile was on the extreme left hand side of the northbound lane of 16th Street, hugging the narrow grass median in that street and struck the plaintiff’s automobile a hard glancing blow at its left front end, swinging it around from a westerly direction to almost due north.

The defendant’s automobile came to rest about 110 feet from the point of impact. The plaintiff’s automobile weighed about 3300 pounds. It was completely demolished. Daniel, his brother and sister, occupied the defendant’s automobile.

Not one of them was injured. The applicable statute is Code (1957) Art. 66 1/2, §233 (b) which provides: “(b) Slopping in obedience to stop■ sign. ■ — ■ The driver of a vehicle shall likewise come to a full stop in obedience to a stop sign and yield the right of way to a vehicle approaching on the intersecting highway as required herein at intersections where a stop sign is erected at one or more entrances thereto although ⁶²⁴ not a part of a through highway.” (Emphasis supplied). We, and our predecessors, have held rigorously and consistently, that the statutory obligation to yield the right of way when entering the favored highway is not discharged by coming to a full stop, but extends to the entire passage across the favored highway. The operator on the favored highway has a right to expect that the driver on the unfavored highway will observe this obligation and need not slow down when approaching the intersection of the favored highway and the