Baldock v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

THE COURT.

Plaintiff was struck and injured by a bicycle ridden by defendant Perez, who was an employee of defendant corporation. The jury returned a verdict in her favor for the sum of $1750. Defendants moved for a directed verdict upon the grounds that there was no evidence of negligence on their part and that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to look in the direction from which the bicycle was approaching. This motion was denied, and later a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was made. The last motion was also denied, and defendants have appealed from the orders and from the judgment entered upon the verdict.

[143]

On May 29, 1930, plaintiff alighted from a street-car which had been traveling in an easterly direction along Market Street in San Francisco. The car had stopped at a safety station on the corner of Seventh Street where all traffic had been halted by a stop signal. Several automobiles had stopped between the safety station and the sidewalk. Plaintiff passed between two of the automobiles in the direction of the sidewalk, and was about to step upon the curb when she was struck by the bicycle, which was moving toward the crossing, its course -being along the right-hand side .of the automobiles, between them and the sidewalk.

Plaintiff testified that before passing between the automobiles she looked in both directions, and looked again when she had passed them, but saw no approaching vehicles. The distance between said safety station and the curb was eleven feet and a few inches, and plaintiff testified that the distance from the curb to the right-hand side of the automobiles was four or five feet. According to one witness plaintiff was “just on the edge of the sidewalk” when she was struck, and another testified that she had one foot on the curb. Defendant Perez testified that two or three cars had stopped at the crossing, while another was moving by the side of the bicycle as it approached; that his bicycle was coasting at the rate of five or six miles an hour, and that the point of collision was about twenty-seven inches from the curb. He denied that he struck plaintiff, his version of the occurrence being that she came in contact with the side of the bicycle. He also stated that he was at all times looking in the direction of the crossing and gave no signal of his approach; further, that had he seen plaintiff before the collision he could have stopped “right away”. The testimony of the eye-witnesses and the physical facts sustain plaintiff’s contention as to how and where the collision occurred, and the evidence also tends to show that defendant Perez was traveling at a higher rate of speed than he testified.