Rice v. Norris

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On this appeal we are requested by the appellant, Miss Jean Steven Rice, the defendant below, to reverse the judgment entered pursuant to the granting by Chief Judge Foster of a directed verdict in favor of the appellee, Verna Denise Norris, the plaintiff below. In directing a verdict for the plaintiff, the lower court ruled, and the appellant admits before us, that the defendant was guilty of primary negligence. The trial court also ruled that as a matter of law the plaintiff was not contributorily negligent.

The case was submitted to the jury solely on the question of damages. This appeal was taken from the refusal to submit the question of contributory negligence to the jury as requested by a prayer offered by the defendant. ⁵⁶⁵ The accident occurred at about 2:00 a.m. on the morning of May 19, 1963. On the evening preceding the accident the appellant, who had rented a car for the day, left her place of employment at about 8:30 p.m. and after going home to change her clothes, picked up two friends, Miss Burger and Miss Dean, and together they proceeded to the Combo Lounge on West Baltimore Street in Baltimore City, arriving there at about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. While at the Lounge Miss Burger introduced the appellant to the appellee, whom Miss Rice had seen before but until this time had never been personally introduced.

The appellee had come to the Lounge to meet a friend but after a disagreement of some kind the friend had left and Mrs. Norris had no way of getting home. She joined the appellant’s party some time after they had arrived and asked the appellant to drive her home, which she agreed to do. When the four women left the Combo they went directly to Miss Rice’s car, which was parked on Gilmor Street, and after getting into the car they drove south on Gilmor until they reached Lombard Street where they stopped for a traffic light. When the light changed the appellant turned left on Lombard in the right lane next to the curb lane.

At this point, according to Officer Daniel R. Oppel, the investigating officer, Lombard Street is a one way, eastbound street, thirty-nine feet wide and having four lanes. Three of these lanes are ten feet wide and the fourth lane nearest the north curb is nine feet wide. He testified that on arriving at the scene at 2:07 a.m. he found a three car accident. The appellant’s automobile had collided with a parked vehicle at a point five feet north of the south curb, 145 feet from the intersection of Lombard and Gilmor Streets, and that the first parked vehicle was driven into a second parked car.

He further testified that the weather conditions were clear and dry. Miss Rice’s vehicle was damaged to the extent that it had to be towed away and the four occupants were taken to a hospital in an ambulance. When the accident occurred Miss Rice was driving, Mrs. Norris was in the right front seat and the other two women were in the rear seat. The appellee testified that she had not had anything to drink but a coke.

The appellant first testified that Mrs. Norris was not “too intoxicated” but at another point admitted that she ⁵⁶⁶ did not know what the appellee had been drinking, but assumed that she had been drinking highballs. The appellant testified that she herself had had only one beer during the course of the evening. Mrs. Norris was somewhat upset about the disagreement with her friend and there was testimony that she was crying while in the bar, on the way to the car, while in the car and at the time of the accident. Several witnesses testified variously that she was not hysterical, that “she didn’t seem intoxicated,” that she “was sober,” that she was a “flamboyant, happy-go-lucky type,” that her behavior did not call “undue attention to herself” and that she was “crying and