Westover v. City of Los Angeles

GIBSON, C. J.

The defendant city appeals from a judgment recovered by the plaintiff for injuries sustained by him while riding as a passenger in an automobile. The injuries were alleged to have resulted from the dangerous and defective condition of a public street. The action was brought under the 1923 Public Liability Act (Stats. 1923, p. 675, Deering’s General Laws, Act 5619) which imposes liability upon cities for damages “resulting from the dangerous or defective condition of public streets . . . where the governing . . . board, officer or person having authority to remedy such condition had knowledge or notice of the defective or dangerous condition . . . and failed or neglected, for a reasonable time after acquiring such knowledge or receiving such notice, to remedy such condition or failed and neglected for a reasonable time ... to take such action as may be reasonably necessary to protect the public against such dangerous or defective condition. ’ ’

When the accident occurred, between 4:30 and 5:00 p. m. on June 7, 1937, plaintiff was riding in the center of the rear seat of a 1936 De Soto sedan, which was proceeding in a southerly direction on Gaffey Street where it crosses 20th Street in the city of Los Angeles. Both streets were paved and

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dry. Extending across Gaffey Street at approximately the north and south curb lines of 20th Street were two drainage gutters or dips in the pavement, from 6 to 8 inches in depth. Plaintiff was injured when thrown against the top of the automobile as it crossed these gutters or dips. The intersection in question was constructed and accepted by the city in 1923. A councilman from this particular district testified that prior to this accident his attention had been called to various complaints about the intersection in question, and that he had reported the matter to the office of the city engineer.

Plaintiff became unconscious after he struck the top of the ear as it went through the second dip. He testified that prior to the accident he did not see any sign of the words “Slow— Dip” on the pavement. Other passengers fixed the car’s speed at between 15 and 22 miles an hour, and they also did not observe any warning signs painted on the surface of the street. The driver of the car testified that he was proceeding south on the right side of Gaffey Street, that as he approached the intersection he was not conversing with anyone but was looking “straight ahead driving the ear,” and that he did not see any warning sign on the pavement or elsewhere as to the presence of dips in the intersection.