Healy v. Yellow Cab Co. of California

WOOD, J.

Plaintiff Esther Healy was injured when she stepped from a taxicab operated by defendant John Crosson and owned by the corporation defendant. Plaintiffs recovered a judgment for the injuries suffered, at a trial before the court without a jury, from which judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

At about 2 o’clock on the morning of February 2, 1937, the plaintiffs, Mr. and Mrs. Healy, and two friends were passengers in defendants’ taxicab, when they were driven to plaintiffs’ residence on Kingsley Drive in the city of Los Angeles. In stopping to discharge passengers from the taxicab the driver did not place his car parallel with the curb but stopped it in such manner that the right front wheel was flush with the curb and the rear end of the car was four or five feet distant' from the curb. The street was not marked for oblique parking. In the act of alighting, Mrs. Healy assumed that the car was parallel with the curb and as a result fell and suffered injuries. The trial court found negligence on the part of defendants and also found that Mrs. Healy was free from contributory negligence. Defendants now contend that these findings are not supported by the evidence.

We are not called upon to decide whether in our view of the evidence the defendants were negligent in stopping the car otherwise than parallel with the curb or whether Mrs. Healy was negligent in not looking more carefully as she stepped from the car, but rather we must bear in mind that these questions were for the determination of the lower court as a trier of fact and that the court’s findings on these points must be sustained if its conclusions could reasonably be drawn from the facts in evidence.

(Maxwell

v.

Fresno City Ry. Co., 4

Cal. App. 745 [89 Pac. 367].) There is no accurate standard for defining negligence. The question

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of negligence or freedom from negligence depends upon the particular facts and circumstances of the case under review. It is the province of the trial court to resolve questions of fact and draw reasonable inferences from facts established. We may not interfere with the court’s findings unless the evidence discloses that the only reasonable conclusion to be reached is that no negligence has been established on the part of the defendant or that, on the issue of contributory negligence, no reasonable conclusion can be reached except that pointing to the negligence of the person injured.