Baldridge v. Cunningham

McCOMB, J.

This is an appeal from judgments in favor of plaintiffs after a trial before a jury in an action to recover damages for the wrongful death of plaintiff Baldridge’s husband and minor son, and also for personal injuries to plaintiff Dixon, which deaths and injuries were the result of an automobile accident.

The essential facts are:

Defendant Cunningham was driving an automobile in a northerly direction on Fortieth Street just south of its intersection with Tierra Bonita Road near Lancaster in the county of Los Angeles. At the same time decedent Samuel Jackson Baldridge was driving an automobile on Tierra Bonita Road in a westerly direction just east of the above-

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mentioned intersection. Biding with him were his son, Freddie Baldridge, and plaintiff J. T. Dixon. The two cars collided at the intersection, with the result that Mr. Baldridge and his son were killed and plaintiff Dixon was seriously injured.

There was a conflict in the testimony as to the details of the accident which it is unnecessary for us to here set forth, since it is conceded that there was substantial evidence to sustain the judgments.

Defendant Cunningham relies for reversal of the judgments on this proposition:

The trial court committed prejudicial error in instructing the jury as follows:

(I) “The court instructs the jury that:

“(a) The driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection shall yield the right of way to a vehicle which has entered ihe intersection from a different highway.

“(b) When two vehicles enter an intersection from different highways at the same time the driver of the vehicle on the left shall yield ihe right of way to the driver of the vehicle on the right.

“No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.

“ ‘Intersection’ is the area embraced within the prolongation of the lateral curb lines, or, if none, then the lateral boundary lines of the roadways, of two highways ivhich join one another at approximately right angles or the area within which vehicles traveling upon different highways joining at any other angle may come in conflict.