Webster v. Motor Parcel Delivery Co.

RICHARDS, J.

This appeal is from a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor for the sum of $1,530.74 damages for injuries alleged to have been received by the plaintiff through being struck by the defendant’s automobile upon one of the streets of the city of Oakland while the said automobile was being operated by a servant of the defendant in a negligent manner.

A brief statement of the material facts in the case will serve to elucidate the several points urged by the appellant upon this appeal.

Clay Street, in the city of Oakland, at the time of the plaintiff’s injuries was one of1 the streets of said city wherein automobiles were to be parked in the center of the street in accordance with the traffic regulations adopted by the governing body of said city. On December 1, 1917, at about 8 o’clock in the evening, the plaintiff parked her automobile in the center of Clay Street, between 14th and 15th Streets, and having done so walked out from the rear of her machine westerly with the intention of crossing to the westerly side of Clay Street, and was immediately, and when about three feet from the said westerly end of her machine, struck by an automobile of the defendants driven by one of its agents, who was proceeding southerly along said street on the westerly side thereof, from which impact the plaintiff sustained certain injuries from which she suffered severely and by which she was prevented from engaging in her work of selling automobiles upon commission

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for several weeks. In her action for damages she sought to recover not only for her personal injuries, but also special damages for her loss of earnings during the period of her inability to pursue her vocation.

The appellant’s first contention is that the evidence is insufficient to justify the finding of the trial court of negligence on the part of the defendant. We are unable to sustain this contention. The evidence showed that Clay Street in the vicinity of the place of the plaintiff’s injuries is a busy thoroughfare and is a business street, though not formally so declared to be or marked by signs as such by the civic' authorities. The resolution of the city council providing for the parking of automobiles in the center of said street, while it does not so declare in terms, implies that persons so parking their machines in its center shall be entitled to cross to its sidewalks from the place of parking at any point along said street. The distance between the rear ends of machines parked in the center of Clay Street in conformity with said regulation and the outer edge of the sidewalk is approximately seventeen feet. Automobiles which are being driven along said street are required to proceed northerly on the easterly side of its center parking lines and southerly on the westerly side thereof.