Snibbe v. Robinson

Offutt, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, This ease grew out of a collision between an automobile owned by the appellee and driven by Miss Rebecca O. Robinson, his daughter, and one owned and operated by George W. Snibbe. It occurred shortly after eight o’clock in the morn ⁶⁶⁰ ing, on October 15th, 1925, at a point where the driveway from Mr. Snibbe’s place intersects Maiden’s Choice Lane, a public highway, which point is between the Frederick Boad and Wilken’s Avenue in Baltimore County. As the appellee, on her way to the Robert Beach School, where she was a student, driving south at about twenty-five miles an hour, reached Mr. Snibbe’s entrance, he came out of it, driving a Packard roadster east into Maiden’s Choice Lane, and she struck his car with her automobile on the left side near the front wheel. As a result of the collision, both cars were substantially damaged and subsequently Mr. Robinson brought this action to recover for the damage to his car.

Pending the suit, Mr. Snibbe died, and his executors, the appellants, were made parties defendant and the ease prosecuted to judgment. It was tried before the court and a jury in the Baltimore City Court, and the verdict and judgment being for the plaintiff, the defendant appealed. The first of the two exceptions presented by the record relates to the action of the trial court in admitting a photograph of the scene of the accident in evidence, and the second to its action in refusing the defendant’s fourth prayer, and these exceptions will be considered in inverse order. The defendant’s fourth prayer in effect asked the court to instruct the jury that the rule of the road prescribed in article 56, section 209, Bagby’s Code Public General Laws, which gives to vehicles approaching road intersections the right of way over other vehicles approaching such intersection from the left, gave Mr. Snibbe the right of way over plaintiff’s car at the time of the collision.

That is to say, his contention is that the word “roads,” as used in that section of the statute, means private as well as public roads, and that the rule prescribed is of general application and is designed to control and regulate the operation of vehicles on all roads irrespective of whether they are public or private, and counsel for appellants assert that proposition very clearly and emphatically in their brief in these words: “The contention of the appellant being that the law as laid down in said sec ⁶⁶¹ tion of the Code makes it absolutely mandatory that the court instruct the jury that the defendant in the lower court, George W. Snibbe, had the right of way over the car belonging to the plaintiff, Harvey H. Robinson. There is no qualification, in the act cited above, of the rule that a vehicle on the right has the right of way, whether it be a public road, a private road, a public highway, or a private lane. The contention of the appellant is that the vehicle on the right has the right of way.” There are, however, two answers to the proposition, either one of which would he sufficient. The first is that such a construction of the statute would be so clearly unreasonable that it should not be adopted, unless in obedience to some clear and unequivocal mandate of the legislature.

We say that, because it would not only tend to hinder and delay the ordinary flow of traffic over the public highways of the state, by requiring persons operating motor cars thereon to observe not only the conditions on the highways over which they may he driving, and all public ways intersecting the same at and near the intersections, but also to discover at their peril the location of all private ways, lanes, and roads, leading into the highways, no matter how obscurely or indefinitely marked they may be, or how difficult it may be for one operating an automobile over ways with which they connect to discover them, while exercising ordinary care to avoid injury to others in the lawful use of the highway. If that construction wore adopted, it would be wholly impracticable to operate motor vehicles over the public highways at the rates of speed permitted by the law, and the Legislature must have considered that fact in fixing the rates of speed at which vehicles may be lawfully operated over the public highways. If it had intended to impose upon persons operating automobiles on such