Koehl v. Carpenter

BRITTAIN, J.

The defendants, sued as husband and wife, by the parents as heirs of Mae C. Koehl, who died as the result of being struck by an automobile driven by Mrs. Carpenter, appeal from a judgment for $1,000 rendered by the trial court sitting without a jury. The appellants rely ón three grounds which will be disposed of in the order of their presentation, after the following statement of facts shown by the record:

Mae Koehl was between twenty-one and twenty-two years of age. She had previously been employed as a cashier in a business concern in Los Angeles. She was out of employment for about a month during which time she remained at home, helping with the household duties. She then went to work as an assistant bookkeeper in the office of her father, who, with his son, was engaged in the manufacturing business. She had been so occupied about a month, and was acquainted with the streets in Los Angeles and with the particular crossing, near her place of business, where the accident occurred.

At the time of the accident, in November, 1917, there was, and had been from some time in 1914, an ordinance of the city of Los Angeles which provided that it should be unlawful for the driver of any vehicle, “upon overtaking any street or interurban railway car which has stopped for the purpose of discharging or taking on any passengers, to fail, neglect or refuse to stop such vehicle at least ten feet in the rear of such . . . car and to keep such vehicle standing where so stopped until such passengers or intending pas

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sengers have safely alighted from or boarded said . . . ear, or until such . . . car shall have started.”

About noon on November 27, 1917, Mae Koehl was a passenger on a street-car running west on Seventh Street, and told the conductor to stop the car at Anderson Street. The car stopped on the east side of Anderson Street at the corner and she alighted, starting to walk diagonally in a northwesterly direction toward the sidewalk at the corner of Seventh and Anderson Streets. The conductor heard a scream and the car, which had started and had gone a few feet, again stopped. The conductor saw her reach a point three or four feet from the curb line when she was struck.

Mrs. Carpenter was driving her motor west on Seventh Street, trailing the street-car, and had been following it for several blocks. At the time of the accident, she testified she was moving at the rate of about ten miles per hour. She did not stop the automobile, nor did she sound any warning as she approached the crossing. She testified that she thought the car was slowing down for the crossing-, that when she saw Miss Koehl in the act of alighting she screamed, and being afraid that the brakes would not hold she turned the machine sharply to the right to avoid the impending collision. She did not run it into the sidewalk, but turned it so that it continued its course westerly near the curb. She testified that the brakes were in good order, and that at the rate at which she was traveling she could have stopped the car in about five feet. The street-car had been running at about six or eight miles an hour, and as it reached Anderson Street Mrs. Carpenter turned from immediately behind it to the north side to pass it while crossing Anderson Street. She testified she had put on the foot-brake, but when she struck Miss Koehl she lost control of herself and did not know what happened. When she first saw Miss Koehl she was ten or fifteen feet away. Miss Koehl was struck when she was near the curb line of Anderson Street and her body was carried nearly to the middle of the street, the automobile running over her and for ten to fifteen feet beyond.