Peggy Sperry v. Tracy Dodge-Plymouth

A jury awarded Peggy Sperry $25,000 as damages in her action against Tracy Dodge-Plymouth Corporation and Millard DeShon for
alleged injuries she sustained as a result of having been struck by an automobile owned by Tracy Dodge and operated by its
salesman, DeShon. Both defendants appealed from the ensuing judgment and both contend that plaintiff failed to make a submissible
case, that the court erred in giving instructions and in refusing to discharge the jury for improper argument by plaintiff's
counsel, and Tracy Dodge contends also that the evidence failed to show that DeShon was on its business at the time of the
accident. Plaintiff's case was submitted on these disjunctively stated assignments of negligence under the humanitarian doctrine,
failure to stop or slacken or warn. In determining whether there was substantial evidence to support the three hypotheses that after plaintiff came into a position
of imminent peril defendant DeShon in the exercise of the highest degree of care could have stopped the car or slackened its
speed or warned the plaintiff of its approach and thus and thereby have avoided striking her, we review the evidence from
a standpoint favorable to plaintiff, give her the benefit of any part of defendants' evidence favorable to her and not contradicted
by her own testimony or not contrary to her fundamental recovery theory, give her the benefit of the reasonable inferences
from all the evidence, and disregard all of defendants' evidence unfavorable to plaintiff. Smithers v. Barker, Mo., 111 S.W.2d
47, 50[1,2]; Ukman v. Hoover Motor Express Co., Mo., 269 S.W.2d 35, 37[2].