Hill v. Peres

OGDEN, J.,

pro

tem.

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding damages for the death of Elizabeth Hill, the minor daughter of respondent, resulting from injuries received in an automobile accident. The caúse was tried with a jury, which rendered its verdict in the sum of $7,833.

Shortly after 10 o’clock P. M. of the evening of January 24, 1932, respondent, driving a Ford coach, with his wife and their three minor children as passengers, was proceeding in an easterly direction along Cutting Boulevard in the city of Richmond. Cutting Boulevard, at the point where the accident occurred and for a considerable distance in either direction, is a level paved highway, sixty-one feet in width, bounded by fourteen-inch curbs. It runs in a general easterly and westerly direction, being perfectly straight except at a point approximately one thousand feet east of that of the accident, where it “jogs” slightly to the south and then continues in the same previous general direction, but deviating slightly to the north. The accident occurred, although within the city limits of Richmond, neither in a business nor residence district as defined in the California Vehicle Act.

The testimony of respondent and two of his children, the only survivors of the accident who were in the Hill car, indicates that respondent first observed the headlights of the automobile driven by appellant, an Auburn sedan in which he was riding alone, when it was at a distance equal to about three ordinary city blocks away approaching from the east on the same highway; that, although when first observed it was apparently on its right (the north) side of the road, as it approached it “zigzagged” across the highway to the

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south side until directly in the path of respondent’s car and between 150 and 200 feet away, when the latter turned sharply to his left in order to permit appellant to pass on his right. Unfortunately, at about the same instant, appellant also turned to his right with the result that the two cars came into violent collision on the north side of the highway, throwing respondent and his wife out of the car and inflicting upon their daughter 'Elizabeth the injuries from which she died the following day.