Lafferty v. Market Street Railway Co.

GRAY, J.,

pro tem.

The above-entitled actions, having-arisen out of the same accident, were consolidated for trial. The jury returned verdicts, awarding Nellie Lafferty $3,000 and James Francis Lafferty, her minor son, $5,000 as damages against Market Street Railway Company and Joseph Bedford, its conductor, and thereupon judgments were entered accordingly. Their motions for new trials having been denied, the latter appeal from such judgments.

The Market Street Railway Company maintains and operates a double track street railway, running in a general northerly and southerly direction, on Guerrero Street in San Francisco. Steam railroad tracks of the Southern Pacific Company, extending in a general northeasterly and southwesterly direction, intersect the street railway tracks imme

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diately north of 26th Street. Northbound street ears cross 26th Street and stop with their rear ends clear of that street and in a position where each conductor may go forward to flag his street car over the railroad crossing. At the time of the accident, Nellie Lafferty, carrying in her left arm James Francis Lafferty, aged one and a half years, was waiting at this stop to board a northbound street car. While so waiting, she and Joseph Bedford, the conductor of such street car, collided and she and her baby were thereby knocked to the pavement with resultant injuries.

The testimony as to the manner and cause of such collision is sharply conflicting. Mrs. Lafferty testified that while she was standing still, clear of the approaching street car, Bedford, in alighting from the moving street car, swung out from its platform against her stomach, knocked her baby and herself to the ground, and fell on top of them. Bedford testified that when the street ear was approaching within a foot of its regular stop he was standing on its step, turning to his left preparatory to alighting, when the street ear stopped; that at the instant he turned towards the front of the car, Mrs. Lafferty stepped towards the car in preparation of boarding it when it stopped and that she came in contact with his left side, thereby precipitating herself and baby to the ground. The motorman of a following street car described the actions of Mrs. Lafferty and Bedford substantially as the latter did. Appellants contend their version of the accident is alone worthy of belief and since, accordingly, its sole cause was Mrs. Lafferty’s negligence in stepping forward against Bed-ford standing on the step, the judgment must be reversed.