Auto negligence; Principle that violation of MCL 257.402(a) creates a rebuttable presumption of negligence; White v. Taylor Distrib. Co., Inc.; Applicability of the sudden emergency doctrine; VanderLaan v. Miedema; Socony Vacuum Oil Co. v. Marvin; Whether a jury should have decided whether the doctrine applied; Cashaw v. Great Lakes Greyhound Lines; Principle that where reasonable jurors cannot disagree as to the reasonableness of a defendant’s actions, the issue is a matter of law; Fiser v. Ann Arbor; Nichols v. Dobler

Holding that the trial court properly ruled that the sudden emergency doctrine applied and that no reasonable juror could find that defendant-Tucker acted negligently under the circumstances, the court affirmed the order granting the defendants-appellees’ motion for summary disposition in this auto negligence case. The action arose from a multi-vehicle accident. Plaintiff was driving a semi-truck and Tucker was driving behind him in his own semi-truck. According to both of them, defendant-Cameron was driving a pickup truck, heading in the same direction in the far left lane on the highway “at a high rate of speed. When Cameron got ahead of plaintiff’s position, he ran into some accumulated snow near the left guard rail,” causing his truck to spin sideways and hit the guard rail, “which created a large cloud of snow.” In the resulting sequence of events, plaintiff managed to avoid any contact with a silver pickup (towing a trailer) that was struck by Cameron’s truck. Tucker “was struck along the side by the silver pickup trailer immediately before rear-ending plaintiff.” The fact that he undisputedly hit the rear of plaintiff’s truck created a rebuttable presumption that he was negligent. However, the statutory presumption may be rebutted by showing a sudden emergency existed. The issue on appeal was whether the trial court erred in concluding that no genuine issue of material fact precluded application of the doctrine. Noting that the doctrine applies “when a situation arises that is unsuspected or unusual and not of the defendant’s own” making, the court concluded that this was “precisely what the evidence shows happened here.” Tucker testified that “he could see nothing except for the cloud of snow.” The fact that plaintiff “arguably did not suffer a ‘white out’ condition from the snow spray does not mean that defendant did not and could not have encountered one.” Plaintiff’s reliance on photos taken after the accident that showed no snow on Tucker’s vehicle did not address the condition outside his “windshield at the time of the accident.”