Schwartz v. Price

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In these two appeals in one record in an automobile collision case, the driver of one automobile and his passenger sued for personal injuries and property damage, and personal injuries, respectively. The court refused the plaintiffs’ prayers for directed verdicts and the jury found verdicts for the defendant, appellee. The appellants also filed motions for judgments n. o. v., which were refused.

The appeals are from judgments' for costs entered upon the jury’s verdicts. No question is raised as to the propriety of directing verdicts for the plaintiffs on the issues of negligence and contributory negligence, if the proof required it. Cf. Richardson v. Boato, 207 Md. 301, 306 , and Shriner v. Mullhausen, 210 Md. 104, 120 .

The collision occurred at or about the intersection of Liberty Road in Carroll County, running east and west, and Dorsey Road which intersects Liberty Road at a right angle on the south side, but ends there. Liberty Road is the favored highway, and stop signs are erected facing Dorsey Road. The widths of the two highways were not shown, but apparently Dorsey Road flares out in both directions at the entrance. Dorsey Road is rather steeply upgrade at the point where it enters the favored highway.

Liberty Road is slightly downgrade to the west. The sight distance to the east is about eleven hundred feet. The weather was clear and the roads dry. The accident happened about 11:30 A. M. Mr. Schwartz testified that he was driving in a westerly direction on Liberty Road at about forty miles per hour in a fifty mile zone.

He said Mr. Price did not stop at the intersection, but later admitted he did not see the other car until just before the impact. He said the Price car struck his car at about the left door when he was in the middle of the intersection or “almost past it”. The damage to his car was ⁴⁶ $196.49, and he sustained a back injury. The left door was pushed in so that it could not be opened after the collision.

Mr. Cohen testified that Mr. Price “came off” the side road and hit the Schwartz car. He did not see the Price car before the impact because he was sitting on the right-hand side. The point of impact was “dead center”, by the door where the driver sits. Mr. Price continued to drive on after the accident until they called to him to stop.

Mr. Price’s testimony was that he drove north on Dorsey Road, intending to turn left on Liberty Road, and stopped. He could see to his right about four hundred feet, but did not see anything coming. He turned to his left “sort of cater-cornered” and “so I started off and I got straight up the road, I suppose maybe fifty feet, then I heard a horn blowing and I looked out the back and I saw this machine, seemed like it was coming right for me, so I was as close to the left as I could get, so I thought I would pull out of his way and let him go on and I pulled to my right * * *.” The other car was ten or fifteen feet away when he first saw it. His testimony as to whether he was on the right or left side of Liberty Road at the time of the collision is hopelessly confused and self-contradictory.

At one place he testified he was on the left side, at another place that he was on the right. There was no mark on his car, except on the right rear fender, and that may have been there before the accident. He admitted that the left door of the other car was “dented”, “his door was bent up”, and said he didn’t “feel no jar or nothing”. In cross-examination he testified he “wanted to try to get out of the way so I pulled sharp to the left”.

Later, he said he was “as close to the right as I could get”, and then he “cut to the left”. His final testimony was that when the accident happened he was “about the middle of the road, a little past the middle, I would say it was the left” of Liberty Road. The only other witness, Mr. Perry, came by after the accident and did not see it. At the time he passed, both cars were parked about seventy-five feet beyond the intersection, the Price car on the left and the Schwartz car on the right.

This testimony is not helpful, as both parties admitted they pulled up the road and stopped to talk the matter over after the impact. ⁴⁷ The appellee conceded that upon the plaintiffs’ version of the