Patzer v. Bowerman-Halifax Funeral Home

These consolidated suits for negligence bring to consideration anew the assured-cleardistanee rule of motoring conduct. The rule is a creature of statute (PA 1927, No 318, title 3, § 5; CLS 1956, § 257.627, as amended by PA 1957, No 190 [Stat Ann 1957 Cum Supp § 9.2327]). The antecedents thereof lie with the common law (see cases cited in Lett v. Summerfield & Hecht, 239 Mich 699 at 702). Its application to variant evidentiary circumstances, once visibly to the rigid, 1 has by force of inexorably developing traffic conditions been modified in recent years to one of “reasonable construction.”…