Kroll v. Rasin

KNIGHT, J.

Henry Bell, aged sixty-two years, and his wife, Alma Bell, aged fifty-four years, were run down and killed while walking across East Fourteenth Street, Oakland, and their children, all of whom but one had attained majority prior to the happening of the accident, joined in bringing two actions for damages on account of the death of each parent. The two cases were tried together before a jury, and a verdict of $7,500 was rendered in each case, but on motion for a new trial each verdict was reduced to $3,750, and from the judgments entered for those amounts the defendant has appealed.

The accident happened about 7 o’clock in the evening on East Fourteenth Street at its intersection with Thirty-eighth Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Bell started from the north curb of East Fourteenth Street to walk southerly across the street in the regular pedestrian path, but soon after leaving the curb they were struck simultaneously by an automobile

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traveling westerly along East Fourteenth Street. Mrs. Bell’s body was hurled upon or near the street-car tracks in the middle of the street, and Bell’s body was found some twenty-five or thirty feet distant westerly.

There are four different automobiles referred to in the evidence, and the testimony as to the manner in which the accident happened and as to which of two of the automobiles first struck Bell and his wife is in sharp conflict. Two witnesses testified that it was a Ford sedan, which the defendant Basin admittedly was driving, that first struck the couple. The testimony of one of these witnesses was to the effect that as the sedan struck the couple a woman screamed, and he saw the woman’s body roll over toward the car tracks, and that the man’s body seemed to drop off the left fender of the Ford. The other witness testified that he also saw the Ford sedan strike them, and that although he did not pay so much attention to what became of the woman’s body after the impact, he heard the scream and saw Bell’s body fall off the fender or the bumper on the front of the Ford sedan. These two witnesses further testified that after the impact the Ford sedan pulled into the curb and stopped about seventy-five feet or more beyond the point of the collision. Two other witnesses testified that Bell and his wife were struck by a large touring car traveling at a high rate of speed, which hurled Mrs. Bell off to the left between the rails of the street-car track and carried Mr. Bell forward on the bumper for a short distance when he dropped to the pavement; that as Mrs. Bell lay between the car tracks another automobile apparently accompanying the first sped along and ran over her body; and that while Bell was trying to raise himself from the ground the defendant Basin came along in his Ford sedan and ran over him.