Kuhns v. Marshall

KERRIGAN, J.

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment by which the plaintiffs recovered damages for personal injuries suffered by Lizzie P. Kuhns.

The action was brought by Lizzie P. Kuhns and Prank C. Kuhns, her husband, for personal injuries suffered by the former and alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant in the operation of his automobile, whereby, it is averred, he came into collision with said Lizzie P. Kuhns.

The accident happened near the intersection of Second and Spring Streets, in the city of Los Angeles, in the evening after dark and "at a time when traffic was congested. On that evening the said plaintiff, holding an umbrella above her, undertook to cross Spring Street from the northeast corner of said intersection. She proceeded westerly, using the crosswalk, until more than halfway across, when the defendant, driving an automobile northward on the east side of Spring Street, and having passed the center of Second Street, turned west, describing a semi-circle in doing so, and came up behind and collided with said plaintiff, who was struck by the right-hand front part of the automobile on the posterior of the left thigh, being thereby thrown and caused certain serious injuries.

[590]

There is evidence that upon stepping from the sidewalk said plaintiff looked to her left in a southerly direction for approaching vehicles, and that when about the center of the street she looked north to her right, these being the respective directions from which traffic should properly approach. She was accompanied by her husband, who, from the moment of leaving the sidewalk, kept a lookout in both directions. They saw no vehicles in close proximity to them, but upon reaching the point already described the defendant’s car, being driven at a speed of from six to eight miles an hour, and its approach being unannounced by any warning signal, came into collision with said plaintiff as already narrated. One of the witnesses described the occurrence as follows: “I looked straight out in the street. Mr. Marshall was coming down Spring Street this way and he was going to make this' turn—whether he was going up Second Street or south on Spring Street I don’t know. Mr. Kuhns and his wife were coming here, and as he was making the turn and got in the middle of the track he ran directly right into them and knocked them down, and he goes clear over here in front of the drug-store of the Hollenbeck Hotel before he stops. I was looking just as I am looking at you, right out into the street, and I noticed him coming up and I noticed Mr. and Mrs. Kuhns coming across the street. Before he hit them I noticed that he was going to run into them, and I hollered. Of course he ran into them, and I thought he was going to run away. ...”