Bates v. Escondido Union High School District

MARKS, Acting P. J.

This is an appeal from judgments in favor of respondents in actions to recover damages for injuries sustained by the minor appellants in a collision between a Buieh coupe driven by George Warner and a school bus driven by John W. Gray. The accident happened on- August 28, 1931, on the state highway about twelve miles north of Paso Robles. The two cases were tried together and are presented on two clerk’s transcripts and one reporter’s transcript.

The case of

Bates

v.

Escondido Union High School District et al.

is before us for the second time (133 Cal. App. 725 [24 Pac. (2d) 884]). Many of the facts stated in the first opinion are applicable to both the present appeals and will not be here. Both the minors were riding in the school bus and were injured in the same accident by having their left arms broken.

In the Bates case the trial court found that none of appellants were guilty of any negligence and that the injury to that minor was caused solely by the negligence of the defendant George Warner. In the Foy case the trial court found that none of the respondents were guilty of any negligence at any time mentioned in the complaint. As sole grounds for reversal of the judgments appellants urge that these findings are contrary to the evidence and that the evidence shows guilty of negligence as a matter of law which was the proximate cause of their injuries.

We have studied the record and have concluded that a considerable preponderance of the evidence supports the challenged findings.

[45]

Gray was driving the school bus southerly on the state highway with the vehicle well over on his own right-hand (westerly) side of the twenty-foot pavement. He approached a small bridge twenty-four feet long down a slight grade. His speed was about thirty miles an hour at the commencement of the grade and was reduced to about fifteen miles an hour at the time of the accident. When but a short distance from the bridge Gray and other witnesses observed Warner’s car being driven rapidly northward along the highway with its left wheels westerly of the center line of the pavement. No estimate of the exact speed of Warner’s car is in the record. When the school bus was about to the bridge Warner’s ear was about forty yards southerly from it with two of its wheels between one and two feet westerly of the center line of the pavement. At the time of the collision the right-hand or westerly side of the bus was very close to the westerly guard-rail of the bridge, probably about six inches from it. The side of the Buick raked along the easterly side of the bus and broke the minors’ left arms which were probably protruding slightly through the bus windows. The road from north of the bridge southerly made a broad curve to the east. The body of the bus had a maximum width of six feet ten inches.