Waizman v. Black

NOURSE, J.

Plaintiff sued for injuries received in an automobile collision. The cause was tried before a jury and resulted in a verdict for plaintiff and against the defendants Black and Hazel Reding in the sum of ten thousand dollars. The defendant Reding alone appeals from the judgment following the verdict, upon typewritten transcripts.

[611]

Two grounds of appeal are advanced—that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict against this appellant and that the verdict is excessive.

On September 1, 1927, the plaintiff was returning from Yosemite Valley riding as the guest of the defendant Black in the latter’s Ford coupe. At about 1:30 P. M. of that day, as they approached from the south the intersection of the Yosemite highway with G Street in the city of Merced, the car driven by the appellant approached the same intersection traveling east on G Street. As the appellant’s car had about crossed the intersection of the two streets the Black car crashed into it, striking the right rear wheel and fender of appellant’s car with the front right wheel and fender of the Black car. As a result of the collision the Black ear went up in the air, landed on its radiator and then on its top with the wheels in the air, and finally came to a stop resting on its left side in the furthermost (or northeast) corner of the intersection close to the northerly curb of G Street. The appellant’s car was turned completely around “in its tracks” and came to a stop close to the southerly line of G Street with the front end “just about in line with the sidewalk.”

Passing for the moment the controversy between the parties as to the relative rates of speed of the two vehicles, the undisputed evidence is that appellant’s car was proceeding well over toward the right-hand curb of G Street, that it had passed into the intersection of the two streets and “had just about cleared the (Twenty-first) street” when it was struck in the rear by the Black car. Thus the collision occurred in the southeast corner of the intersection after the appellant had entered and almost cleared the intersection and at a time when the Black car had scarcely more than nosed into the intersection. The evidence does not clearly show the exact width of either street in the intersection, but all the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to respondent, shows that appellant’s ear traveled at least four times the distance