McGlothin v. Larussa

THE COURT.

An appeal from a judgment entered upon a verdict in favor of plaintiff and against defendant City and County of San Francisco.

A judgment in the same action as against Guiseppe Larussa, who was joined as a defendant with the municipality, was heretofore affirmed.

(McGlothin

v.

Larussa,

121 Cal. App. 758 [10 Pac. (2d) 118].) The action was one for damages sustained by plaintiff while a passenger in a jitney bus operated by Larussa, which came in collision with a truck owned and operated by the municipality.

The latter claims that the implied finding that its employee was negligent is unsupported; that the evidence shows that the sole proximate cause of the injuries complained of was the negligence of Larussa, and further that the verdict is excessive notwithstanding an order of the trial court reducing the amount awarded by the jury.

[326]

At about 8 o’clock A. M. on November 22, 1929, the jitney bus was proceeding north on the right-hand side of Valencia Street in San Francisco. According to the testimony when the bus reached the intersection of Valencia Street with Nineteenth Street, which runs east and west, it passed the southerly curb line of Nineteenth Street at a speed between thirty and thirty-five miles an hour. At about the same time a five-ton truck twenty-one feet long and seven feet wide, owned and operated by the municipality and which had been traveling south on Valencia Street, entered the intersection, and a collision between the two vehicles occurred in the east half thereof. There was some testimony that the truck was also traveling at an excessive speed. It appears without dispute that the driver of the truck was turning to his left, and that in so doing he did not pass beyond the center of the intersection. Under the provisions of section 129 of the California Vehicle Act it would have been his duty to do so unless otherwise directed by “turning markers” at the intersection. The above section provided that boards of supervisors and legislative bodies of cities and towns might by ordinance prescribe a different method of turning at any intersection of highways, provided “markers” or other devices should be located upon the pavement and within the intersection, clearly indicating the course to be traversed by vehicles turning at such intersection. It is admitted that the supervisors of the municipality had adopted such an ordinance, and that on and along the curb lines crossing the intersection were certain markers or buttons, one being on the north curb line of Nineteenth Street approximately in the center of Valencia Street. The court instructed the jury that the said ordinance provided that “the operator of a vehicle intending to turn to the left at an intersection or an alley or driveway shall approach the point of turning in the line of traffic next to the center of the roadway . . . The operator of a vehicle in turning left at an intersection shall pass to the right of the center of the intersection before turning except where markers have been placed upon the intersection boundary line to be crossed by vehicles, and the operator shall pass to the right of such markers.”