LeBlanc v. Browne

DESMOND, P. J.

Plaintiffs, Alice A. LeBlanc and Harry LeBlanc, also known as Alice A. White and Harry White and so referred to at the trial and in this opinion, appeal from a judgment entered subsequent to the rendition of a jury verdict in favor of defendant in an action by which plaintiffs sought damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff Alice A. White on March 2, 1942, when a Mercury automobile, driven by defendant, collided with her in a pedestrian crosswalk located on South Vermont Avenue just immediately south of West Thirty-Fifth Street in the city of Los Angeles. Defendant, as a defense to plaintiffs’ action, set up contributory negligence on the part of Mrs. White as the proximate cause of her injuries, alleging that “said plaintiff, immediately prior to and at the time of this accident was walking across Vermont Avenue proceeding in a southeasterly direction at the southeast corner of Vermont Avenue and 35th Street, and was doing so in a reckless, negligent and careless manner and without regard for other traffic upon 35th Street and Vermont Avenue, and without due regard, or any regard or care for her own safety and the safety of others.”

South Vermont Avenue extends in a northerly-southerly direction and is ■ approximately eighty feet wide from curb to curb. On it are located four streetcar rails, two for northbound and two for south-bound streetcars. West Thirty-Fifth Street approaches South Vermont Avenue at a slight angle from the southeast but does not cross it, terminating on the easterly boundary of South Vermont Avenue. It is approximately thirty-four feet wide from curb to curb. Several feet south of the corner formed by Thirty-Fifth Street is located a pedestrian crosswalk, fifteen feet wide, running across South Vermont Avenue and marked by two white lines parallel to each other. Twelve inches north of the northerly line of the pedestrian crosswalk and approximately eighteen inches to the east of the most easterly streetcar track is painted a white “button” and nine feet directly north of this “button” is

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another white painted “button.” These so-called “buttons,” which we have placed in quotation marks, are merely discs painted on the pavement and are to be distinguished from two metal buttons which appear in photographic exhibits at a considerable distance north of the crosswalk and which rise several inches above the level surface of the pavement. These metal buttons are of no importance in this case being located in the passenger loading zone north of the crosswalk where the accident occurred. Both corners formed by Thirty-Fifth Street at its junction with Vermont Avenue are improved with buildings and the immediate vicinity is a business one.