Baumann v. Zhukov, No. 14-2981 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseAround 4:20 a.m. Zhukov, driving a tractor-trailer on I-80, struck an object in the road. His vehicle lost air-brake pressure. Zhukov stopped with the trailer in the right-hand lane. Experts opined that he could have pulled completely onto the shoulder. Zhukov turned on his hazard lights and placed warning reflectors closer to the trailer than federal regulations require, in a formation that guided traffic to the right shoulder rather than the left lane. At 4:34 a.m., Johnson’s semi-tractor-trailer crashed into Zhukov’s trailer without slowing down, killing Johnson, causing a fire, and completely blocking both lanes. The Schmidts, traveling in two cars, safely stopped at the end of the traffic jam. Vehicles in the lineup -- including both Schmidt cars and the truck in front of them -- activated hazard lights; emergency vehicles had overhead lights flashing. At 5:14 a.m., Slezak’s semitractor-trailer smashed into Schmidt’s car at 75 miles per hour, propelling Christopher’s car into his wife’s car, which was pushed under a semi-trailer. The entire Schmidt family perished. A Nebraska State Trooper determined that Slezak did not brake or attempt to avoid the cars; he had been driving for at least 14 hours -- three more than permitted by 49 C.F.R. 395.3(a)(3)(i). The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Zhukov and Zhukov’s and Johnson’s employers. Schmidts’ injuries were not proximately caused by their negligence because the unanticipated negligence of Slezak was an “efficient intervening cause.”
Court Description: Loken, Author, with Bye and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Personal injury. In a case of this kind, like the district court the court concludes that the Supreme Court of Nebraska would take a fact-specific approach to the question of whether a second highway crash was proximately caused by the intervening negligence of a third party that could not have been reasonably anticipated by the defendants who caused the first crash; the district court did not err in finding that the negligence of the driver of the vehicle which struck plaintiffs' decedents in the second crash was an unforeseeable efficient intervening cause as a matter of law, and the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the driver-defendants who caused the first crash. Judge Bye, dissenting
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