Lloyd v. Calhoun

Highways — -Action fob Damages — Collision—Negligence—Contributory Negligence — Violating Law of Road. In an action for damages resulting from an automobile collision, tbe plaintiff is guilty of negligence per se precluding any recovery for the injury sustained, where it appears that plaintiff, on the right-hand side of the road, observed defendant’s machine coming towards him upon a smooth prairie, at a rate of forty miles an hour, in the center of the road, and which kept turning to the left> until defendant’s machine was sixty or seventy-five feet from him, when plaintiff suddenly turned to the left under the belief that otherwise defendant would run him down, but that defendant immediately turned his machine to the right and the collision occurred, plaintiff’s excuse for not turning to the right upon the open prairie being on account of telegraph poles, which the evidence showed were one hundred and twenty-six feet apart, and that the distance between plaintiff and the nearest pole, at the time he turned to the left, was not less than seventy-six feet; since it was the duty of both parties to keep to the right to avoid a collision, and plaintiff’s violation of the law of the road was negligence per se, and the proximate cause of the accident (overruling Id., 78 Wash. 438, 139 Pac. 231). Fullerton, Mount, and Parker, JJ., dissent.

Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for Pierce county, Easterday, J., entered June 30, 1913, upon the verdict of a jury rendered in favor of the plaintiff, in an action in tort.