Facts
- Anna Tedla and John Bachek, junk collectors, walked along Sunrise Highway at about 6 p.m. on a dark December Sunday, each pushing a baby carriage loaded with junk.
- The highway had two separated roadways (eastbound and westbound) divided by a grass plot; there were no sidewalks, and the grass plot was too soft for the carriages.
- A pedestrian statute required persons on the traveled roadway to keep to the left of the center line so vehicles could pass on their right.
- Tedla and Bachek walked easterly on the eastbound roadway (the right side for their direction of travel), contrary to the statute, because traffic on the opposite roadway was heavy while traffic on their roadway was very light.
- They were struck from behind by the defendant’s automobile; Tedla was injured and Bachek was killed.
- The jury found the accident was due solely to the driver’s negligence.
Issues
- Whether pedestrians’ violation of a statute requiring them to walk on the left side of the roadway constitutes contributory negligence as a matter of law, barring recovery, when compliance would have exposed them to greater danger.
Decision
- The Court of Appeals affirmed judgments for the plaintiffs.
- The court held the statutory violation was not contributory negligence as a matter of law under these circumstances.
- The trial court properly left to the jury whether the statutory departure was reasonable and whether it was a proximate cause of the accident.
Legal Principles
- Statutory violation is not automatically conclusive of negligence when strict compliance, in the situation presented, would frustrate the statute’s safety purpose.
- A general “rule of the road” that codifies customary safety practices may permit common-law exceptions where abnormal conditions make literal compliance more dangerous than deviation.
- Negligence-per-se treatment is less appropriate where the statute functions as a general conduct rule rather than an unmistakably inflexible standard displacing common-law reasonableness.
- When reasonable minds could differ on whether a statutory departure increased or reduced danger, contributory negligence and proximate cause are questions for the jury.
Conclusion
The court refused to treat a pedestrian’s technical violation of the “walk on the left” statute as an absolute bar to recovery where compliance would have increased the risk of harm, holding that the reasonableness and causal effect of the departure were properly for the jury to decide.