Perlin Packing Co. v. Price

Finan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal from the Circuit Court for Wicomico County, sitting with a jury, involves twelve consolidated cases, all arising from an intersection collision between a school bus and a tractor trailer. Eleven cases arise from personal injuries to infant passengers and one case is for property damages to the tractor trailer and its contents. The actions were severed as to the questions of liability and damages and issues were presented to the jury.

The jury found the defendants (now appellants, who are the operators and owners of the two vehicles involved) negligent and rendered verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs (appellees) in the actions growing out of the injuries to the infant passengers and against the tractor-trailer owner in the property damage claim. The accident occurred at about 8:00 a.m. on November 5, 1964, in Fruitland, Maryland, just south of Salisbury, at the intersection of U. S. Route 13 and Main Street. At the scene of the accident, U. S. Route 13 is a dual highway running in a general north-south direction, with two lanes for northbound traffic and two lanes for southbound traffic. There are also two turning lanes at the intersection where the accident occurred, one on the inside or easterly side of the southbound lanes of U. S. Route 13 to be used by vehicles turning left off U. S. Route 13 to go east on Main Street, and the other on the inside or westerly side of the northbound lanes of U. S. Route ⁴⁷⁸ 13 to be used by vehicles turning left off U. S. Route 13 to go west on Main Street.

U. S. Route 13 is separated by a median strip approximately 37 feet in width. Main Street is a two-lane blacktop highway running in a general east-west direction. The distance from the west side of the southbound roadway of U. S. Route 13 at Main Street to the east side of the northbound roadway of U. S. Route 13 at Main Street is 120 feet. Traffic at the intersection of U. S. Route 13 and Main Street is controlled by automatic traffic signals.

There is one traffic light suspended over the northbound lanes of U. S. Route 13 at its intersection with Main Street and one traffic light suspended over the southbound lanes of U. S. Route 13 at its intersection with Main Street. These lights are synchronized and work in unison. The distance between the two lights is 82 feet. The traffic signals were set at the time of the accident so that they would show green for traffic proceeding on U. S. Route 13 for a period of forty seconds, then change to amber for a period of six seconds and then change to red for a period of 36 seconds.

When the traffic signals show green and amber for traffic on U. S. Route 13, they show a red light for traffic on Main Street and when the traffic signals show green and amber for traffic on Main Street, they show a red light for traffic on U. S. Route 13. The posted speed limit for traffic traveling on U. S. Route 13 was 35 miles per hour, and the posted speed limit for traffic traveling on Main Street was 30 miles per hour. There were no “yield” or “stop” signs in the median strip requiring a vehicle crossing U. S. Route 13 in either direction on Main Street to yield the right-of-way to a vehicle in the far lane. Although there were three vehicles involved in this accident, we are only concerned with two.

One was a school bus driven by defendant Barbara Ann King and owned by defendant Douglas J. King. This bus was on its regular route with more than thirty children on board whom Mrs. King had picked up on this particular morning and whom she was taking to a school which was about a mile to the east of the scene of the accident. The several plaintiffs in this case were either passengers in the bus or their parents. The bus was a typical International school bus about 34 feet in length.

The bus had traveled almost com ⁴⁷⁹ pletely through the intersection, going east on Main Street, at the time of the accident. The second vehicle was a 15-ton tractor trailer driven by defendant Bernard Williams and owned by defendant Perlin Packing Company. The truck was loaded with eleven tons of “swinging” beef (whole beefs hanging from overhead hooks). It was headed north on U. S. Route 13 traveling from Norfolk to the metropolitan markets.

A third vehicle, a pickup truck operated by Richard Monroe Pote, was in the process of turning north-on U. S. Route 13 from a westbound course on Main Street, and was involved as a by-product of the major collision. Potebeing a witness, not a litigant. On the morning of the accident, the weather was extremely foggy. Trooper William E. Mitchell, the Maryland State Trooper who investigated the accident, testified that he drove about 8 miles to the scene immediately after the accident occurred and that when he drove 40 miles per hour he was driving over his visibility.

The bus operator, Barbara King, had left home slightly early' on this morning because of the extreme fog. She picked up the school children on her route as usual. Mrs. King testified that she did not know how fast she was traveling as she approached the intersection, but that she was going slowly. Jerry Price, a. student who was riding in the bus and a plaintiff below, testified in his deposition, which was admitted in evidence, that Mrs, King was traveling about 35 miles per hour as she approached' the intersection and slowed down to about 15 miles per hour as she went through the intersection.

Other witnesses estimated the speed of the bus to be 20 miles per hour as it traversed the intersection. The defendant Bernard Williams was operating the tractor trailer in a northerly direction on U. S. Route 13 at a speed of about 35 miles per hour. Nora Jones, who observed the tractor trailer just prior to the accident, estimated its speed to be 35-to 40 miles per hour. According to the testimony of defendant Barbara King, as, she approached the intersection, she saw that the light was, green for traffic on Main Street, and, therefore, went through the intersection.

She had completely crossed the southbound ⁴⁸⁰ lanes of U. S. Route 13 and the area constituting the median strip when the right side of her bus was struck by the Williams’ tractor trailer. There was no conflict about the point of impact. The bus was struck at a point slightly to the rear of its center by the front of the Williams’ vehicle. The impact was at the point where the eastbound lane of Main Street crossed the right-hand (slow) lane of the northbound lanes of U. S. Route 13.

The tractor trailer left skid marks of 21 feet and 29 feet in that lane leading up to the point of impact. On impact the bus pivoted around on its front end and was driven backward into Pote’s truck, which was just entering the turnoff lane to turn north on U. S. Route 13. When the vehicles came to rest the bus was completely off U. S. Route 13 on the east side, blocking the westbound lanes of Main Street, and facing south. The Williams’ tractor trailer was more or less parallel to it, still headed north, and was to the west of the bus in the slow (east) lane of U. S. Route 13.

Defendant Williams testified that he first saw the traffic light and the school bus when he was about 50 feet from the intersection. At that point, according to Williams’ testimony, the light was “caution” for traffic on U. S. Route 13 (ergo, red for traffic on Main Street). He applied his brakes, but was unable to stop in time to avoid the collision. Numerous witnesses testified as to the color of the traffic signal at the intersection at various points of time with relation to the accident.

Defendant Kang testified that when the bus entered the intersection, the light was green for vehicles traveling on Main Street and three school children passengers on her bus testified that the light was green for the bus as it approached or entered the intersection. A pedestrian testified that she was standing at the intersection as the school bus approached and that the traffic light was green for the bus as it entered the intersection. Just before the accident occurred, John Price and Howard Girley had stopped their respective vehicles for a red light in the southbound lanes of U. S. Route 13. Girley testified that, at the time the accident occurred, the light was still red for traffic on Route 13, and Price testified that the light had just ⁴⁸¹ turned green for traffic on Route 13 and he had just started south when he heard the crash.

Nora Jones and Orville Johnson were both in a filling station at the southwest corner of the intersection when the accident occurred. Neither of these witnesses observed the traffic signal before the accident, but both heard the crash and then looked up at the light; they testified that the light was green for traffic on Route 13. Richard Pote was operating his pickup truck in a westerly direction on Main Street just prior to the accident. As he crossed the railroad tracks, about 250 feet easterly from the intersection, he glanced up and saw a red light for traffic on Main Street.

After that he never looked back at the light. Whatever color the light would have been for him going westerly on Main Street, it would have been the same for the school bus coming easterly. Defendant King never saw the Williams’ tractor trailer before the collision. She testified that as she was going across the median strip of the intersection, she glanced up at the light over the northbound lanes and it was still green for her.

She further testified that she was following a pickup truck into Main Street and was watching this truck as she went on across the northbound lanes; she did not look to the south before crossing the northbound lanes. The only person in the bus who saw the tractor trailer before the accident was Alice Ruth Wallace, a fifteen-year old riding in the front seat. Alice was not clear where the bus was when she saw the tractor trailer, but she glanced at it, looked away, and then the accident occurred. She testified that the light was green for the defendant King as the bus crossed the southbound lanes and she did not notice the light over the northbound lanes.

At the conclusion of the testimony the plaintiffs and defendants all moved for directed verdicts in their respective behalfs. Defendant Barbara King and defendant Williams each claimed the benefit of the boulevard rule as the favored driver and that, as such, they were free of any primary negligence and that the negligence of the other was the sole proximate cause of the accident. All motions for directed verdicts were overruled — the trial ⁴⁸² judge allowing the case to go to the jury. In his instructions-to the jury, the trial judge informed them that for the purposes, of their deliberation they were to consider the intersection at Main Street and U. S. Route 13 to be one intersection and. not two.

This was directly contrary to the theory of the case-urged by defendants Williams and Perlin. Verdicts were brought in against all defendants in the various, passenger claims and a verdict was rendered in favor of the defendants King in the property damage suit of the Perlin Packing Company. Appeals were taken from these rulings by all' the defendants as well as from alleged errors in the court’s instructions to the jury. THE KING APPEAL We will first consider the grounds for appeal urged by the appellants King.

The main thrust of the King appeal is predicated on the proposition that when Mrs. King, operating the bus on Main Street, entered the intersection she did so on a. green light and that although this particular intersection is controlled by two separate but synchronized traffic lights, one suspended over each section of dual highway U. S. Route 13, it should be considered as one intersection and applying the boulevard rule, once she had entered the intersection on the green light,, she had the right-of-way through the entire intersection even though the lights may have changed as she proceeded through, the intersection. As a corollary to this, the Kings contend that appellant Williams, operating the tractor trailer on U. S. Route-13, was duty bound to yield the right-of-way and that such failure to yield was the sole proximate cause of the accident — there-being no primary negligence on the part of Mrs. King. Reliance is placed in Packer v. Hampden Trans. Etc.

Co., 206 Md. 407, 111 A. 2d 849 (1955), a case presenting a similar-type double-light intersection where Cold Spring Lane traverses-Roland Avenue in the City of Baltimore. In Packer this Court held that it was the legislative intent that such an intersection,, when viewed in the light of the definitions of “Intersection,” Art. 66y2, § 2(20), Code (1951) (now Art. 66y2, § 2(a) (20),. Code (1957)), and “Roadway,” Art. 66y2, § 2(46), Code-(1951) (now Art. 66y2, § 2(a) (47), Code (1957)), be con ⁴⁸³ strued as a single intersection and not as two intersections. This Court agrees that the ruling of Packer is apposite to the instant case and we find nothing in the facts of this case or in this Court’s opinion in Belle Isle Cab v. Trammell, 227 Md. 438 , 177 A. 2d 404 (1962), a case involving three streets and readily distinguishable, which would remove this case from under the Packer construction.

However, we cannot agree with appellants King when they gratuitously assume that there was no evidence in this case that Mrs. King entered the intersection on something other than a green light. There is no question but that there was substantial evidence showing Mrs. King entering the intersection with a green light in her favor. However, there was legally sufficient evidence in the testimony, giving rise to reasonable inferences, from which the jury might fairly have deduced that Mrs. King did not have a green light when she entered the intersection. The trial court must be concerned with the legal sufficiency of the evidence,, rather than the weight of the evidence, and as long as there is such evidence the jury must pass upon it.

As was said by this Court seventeen years ago in Valench v. Belle Isle Cab Co. 196 Md. 118 , 75 A. 2d 97 (1950) at p. 122: “We have said so often that it has become trite, that if there is any evidence, however slight, legally sufficient as tending to prove negligence, the weight and value of such evidence will be left to the jury.” Fowler v. Smith, 240 Md. 240, 246 , 213 A. 2d 549, 544 (1965) and Ford v. Bradford, 213 Md. 534, 541 , 132 A. 2d 488, 492 , (1957). The testimony of Pote, who was driving his pickup truck-westerly on Main Street while Mrs. King was approaching easterly on Main Street, is to the effect that some two hundred and1 fifty feet from the intersection he looked up and saw the light to be red. The appellants King endeavor to rationalize this statement, and while so doing minimize the importance of his testimony, by contending that Pote observed the light as red immediately prior to its going through its green-amber cycle, and that it went through that cycle between the time Pote observed' ⁴⁸⁴ the light and the instant of the impact. The green-amber cycle would have required 36 seconds for Main Street traffic.

Pote testified that he was traveling at about 10 to 15 miles per hour when he observed the red light about 250 feet from the intersection. At the speed of 10 miles per hour he would have covered the distance between his point of observation of the red light and the turn off at the intersection in approximately 17 plus seconds, which would have had him stopped at the turn off at the intersection approximately 19 seconds before the impact, which is contrary to his testimony. On the other hand, Pote could have observed the traffic signal during its red interval and have traveled this 250