Impson v. Structural Metals, Inc. 487 S.W.2d 694 (Tex. 1972) The driver of a Structural Metals truck attempted to pass a car within 100 feet of an intersection. There was a collision injuring and killing several people. One of the injured people, Impson, sued for negligence. There was a Statute saying that passing a car within 100 feet of an intersection is a traffic violation. The Trial Court found for Impson. Structural Metals appealed. The Trial Court found that the driver was involved in a traffic violation, therefore, he was automatically negligent as a matter of law. Basically, the jury didn't need to decide if the driver was negligent or not, they were just told to assume he was. Structural Metals argued that negligence was not a matter of law based solely on whether the driver broke a traffic law, but needed to be submitted to a jury. The Appellate Court affirmed. The Appellate Court agreed that Structural Metals can only be found liable for negligent as a matter of fact. The Court noted that Restatement of Torts ¤288A states that an excused violation of a legislative enactment is not negligence. Basically, if you violate a law, but there is some mitigating circumstance, you can still be found guilty of violating the law, but you aren't necessarily negligent. Therefore, it's for a jury to decide if there were excuses or mitigating circumstances. Negligence can't be decided as a matter of law. However, in this case, no evidence was presented at trial that there were mitigating circumstances or legally acceptable excuses, so Structural Metals was out of luck. Basically, this case said that just because you broke the law, that doesn't automatically mean that you are negligent. However, you have to have had a good reason to have broken the law in order to be not-negligent.