Rose v. County of Orange

BARNARD, P. J.

In this action for damages, arising from an automobile accident, the defendant county appeals from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff and also from an order denying its motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict of the jury.

The accident happened in the community of Westminster at the “T” intersection of 13th Street, a county road, with Huntington Beach Boulevard, a through state highway. The highway runs north and south, having an 18-foot concrete pavement with a white line in the center, and oiled shoulders on either side. An open ditch runs along the east side of this highway. The evidence is conflicting as to the distance between the east edge of the pavement and the beginning of the slope of the ditch. Two witnesses for the respondent testified that this distance was about a foot while a state highway patrolman testified that it was approximately 10 feet. Thirteenth Street comes in from the west, dead-ending there, and does not cross the highway or the ditch. It is approximately 30 feet wide and has an oiled surface. For years a stop sign had stood on 13th Street where it entered the highway. Two witnesses testified that this stop sign had been lying on the ground for about a week before the accident, while a highway patrolman, who arrived 35 minutes after the accident occurred, testified that it was then in place.

The respondent and her husband lived about a mile from this intersection, in the house in which he was born. Shortly before 7 o’clock on the evening of December 14, 1946, they left home to go to Santa Ana, the husband driving the automobile. Respondent and her husband occupied the front seat and two young men sat in the rear seat. It was an extremely foggy night and very difficult to see even 15 feet ahead of the automobile. However, they successfully turned five corners within about a mile, and then stopped to pick up a young lady who lived on 13th Street, about two blocks west of this intersection. She got into the rear seat of the automobile and respondent’s husband drove on easterly toward this intersection. He testified that he traveled 10 to 15 miles per hour; that “We were all trying to peek out and see where we were at”; that he did not see any stop sign at the entrance to the

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highway although he knew that there had been one there as long as he could remember; that he did not see any white lines on the pavement; and that “I knew we were coming close to Huntington Beach Boulevard, but I didn’t have any warning.” He drove on across the highway and into the drainage ditch east of the highway, his wife being thrown against the windshield and receiving the injuries in question.