Little v. Yanagisawa

[305]

LANGDON, P. J.

This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment for $5,000 against him in an action brought to recover damages for the death of the daughter of plaintiffs. It is alleged that said death was caused by the negligence of defendant in driving an automobile in the city of Oakland, California.

The accident happened at the intersection of Moraga Avenue and Pleasant Valley Avenue. Moraga Avenue enters Pleasant Valley Avenue with a sharp, curve. At about 8 o’clock in the morning on November 15, 1922, the defendant drove a Ford automobile down Moraga Avenue and into its intersection with Pleasant Valley Avenue at a speed variously estimated at twenty and twenty-five miles an hour. He came down quite a grade as he approached this intersection and did not sound any warning signal as he descended the hill, approached the intersection or rounded, the curve.

Dorothy Little, the twenty-one year old daughter of plaintiffs, was crossing Moraga Avenue at the intersection and was struck and dragged by defendant’s automobile, suffering injuries from which she died in a few days.

Another feature of the case is that along the curb at the intersection of the streets are twelve trees, which at the time of the accident were fifteen feet high and had been trimmed into a mushroom shape, so that they hung down to about four or five feet from the ground. Because of the curve in the street, these trees obstructed the vision of one crossing at the intersection so that he could not see up Mo-raga Avenue after he had reached a point about in the middle of the street. In other words, it appears in evidence that an automobile coming down Moraga Avenue on the right-hand side of the street could be seen by a person at the time he started across the intersection and until he reached about the center of the street, when the view was lost around the curve because of the interference of the trees. Moraga Avenue is thirty-two feet wide, so for about sixteen feet of the crossing it would be impossible to see a vehicle coming down the hill toward the place of intersection.

At the time of the accident the deceased was accompanied by her cousin, Miss Fake, who testified at the trial that before she and deceased started across the street, Miss Fake looked up Moraga Avenue and saw the automobile of the defendant several hundred feet up Moraga Avenue coming