When two drivers with different ideas about who has the right of way meet at an intersection, trouble often follows – much like when opposing interpretations of the law collide in court, as evidenced by the conflicting legal decisions handed down in the aftermath of a crash near a stopped school bus.
The case of Jonetha Singleton v. Starshaka Cuthbert delves into the meaning of “meeting” or “overtaking” in a state traffic law designed to protect students exiting buses.
The statute says, in part, that a driver “meeting or overtaking from either direction a school bus stopped on a highway or private road must stop before reaching the bus” when its lights are flashing and “must not proceed until the bus resumes motion or the flashing red lights are no longer actuated.”
Singleton was stopped one car behind a school bus when she made a left turn into the path of an oncoming vehicle with Cuthbert at the wheel. Cuthbert clearly violated the law by passing the stopped bus.
But Cuthbert and her attorneys argued that Singleton also was negligent because, under their interpretation of the law, she should have waited for the bus to deactivate its flashing lights or go on its way before she turned.
Beaufort County Circuit Judge J. Ernest Kinard took the same view of the law as Cuthbert and granted her motion at trial for a directed verdict, determining that Singleton violated the law that requires drivers “overtaking” or “meeting” unloading buses to stop.
Kinard told jurors that he ruled against Singleton “because she was in close proximity to the bus.”
“If the bus had stopped and traffic had backed up for two miles, you know, you could turn,” he added. “It’s only when you get close enough that a child might be in danger that you couldn’t … turn.”
The jury had to determine Cuthbert’s negligence, the comparative negligence of each party and causation. They returned a verdict for Cuthbert.
Singleton’s attorney, Bernard McIntyre of Beaufort, said in an interview that he believed Kinard’s ruling on the directed verdict “prejudiced the jury.” After the loss, he convinced two members of a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling and grant Singleton a new trial.
“You can’t be deemed to overtake anything without having passed it,” McIntyre said. “The definition is overtaking and you’re not overtaking because you’re not passing.”
Judges Stephanie McDonald and James Lockemy agreed. They concluded that, in their view of the law, Singleton was not required to wait for the bus to move before she turned because she was neither “meeting or overtaking” the bus.
McDonald, who wrote the July 6 opinion, gave a nod to a South Carolina Supreme Court decision from 1936, Fisher v. J.H. Sheridan Co., which McIntyre had cited. The case involved an earlier version of a law against passing buses as kids deboarded and the court held that passing – the word was included in the statute at the time – “meant ‘going by’ regardless of whether the automobile and bus are travelling in the same direction,” McDonald wrote.
“Similarly,” she added, “the common simple definitions of ‘overtake’ include ‘to move up and past (someone or something that is in front of you) by moving faster’ and ‘to go past another vehicle that is moving more slowly in the same direction.’”
McIntyre said the majority’s decision has “added clarity by saying you have to actually at least have the intent, if not in fact physically be passing the vehicle.” He also said that a driver’s proximity to the bus is insignificant as long as they’re not passing the bus.
Had the appellate court affirmed Kinard’s ruling, McIntyre said drivers would theoretically be violating the law even if they were not anywhere near a stopped bus when they turned.
“It could have been 50 yards,” he said. “It could have been a football field.”
Cuthbert’s appellate attorneys, Elizabeth Wieters of Hall Booth Smith in Charleston and Jeffrey Ross of Jeff Ross Lawin Mount Pleasant, did not respond to interview requests.
In his dissent, Judge Paul Short contended that the law in question clearly requires drivers to stay put while a bus unloads.
“By her own testimony and clear language of the statute, I find she [Singleton] was in violation and the evidence supports the trial court’s ruling,” Short wrote.
When asked about the dissent, McIntyre replied: “I think it’s slim pickins.”
“I’m hard-pressed to appreciate the dissent,” he continued. “You can’t put something into the statute that’s not there. If you’re a mile behind the bus [and you turn], is that negligence per se?”
He added, “I think the dissent will fade into oblivion.”
Ronnie Cole, an Anderson lawyer who has been practicing law since 1976 and teaches traffic and criminal law to magistrate and municipal court judges, said he could see both sides of the argument. But he agreed with Singleton.
“My feeling is if I’m behind a school bus and it’s stopped with flashing lights and a stop sign out and I want to turn left into my driveway, I don’t see any prohibition against doing that,” he said. “Whoever’s coming in the opposite direction has an obligation to stop for that school bus.”
The five-page decision is Singleton v. Cuthbert (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-064-16). A digest of the ruling can be found at sclawyersweekly.com.
Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @SCLWBantz