Traylen v. Citraro

California Court of Appeal Feb 25, 1931 No. Docket No. 6866.Published

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Holding. The court held that the trial court correctly instructed the jury that both defendants were negligent as a matter of law and that the omission of the element of proximate cause in that instruction was not prejudicial because proximate cause was established as a matter of law.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury that both defendants were negligent as a matter of law.
Whether the failure to include the element of proximate cause in the negligence instruction constituted reversible error.
Whether the trial court erred in refusing to give instructions regarding the presumption that others obey the law.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The evidence is legally sufficient to sustain the trial court’s conclusion that both defendants were guilty of negligence as a matter of law.”

“it was a clear case of concurrent negligence wherein the evidence shows beyond any reasonable inference to the contrary that the negligence of each defendant contributed proximately to the happening of the accident.”

“the issue of proximate cause was one of law, and the trial court would have been justified in refusing to give any instructions on that subject.”

THE COURT.

This is the second of five actions arising out of a collision which took place at the intersection of Fifth and Julian Streets in San Jose, between two automobiles driven respectively by the defendants Pratt and Cft

[174]

raro. In four of them judgments were obtained by the plaintiffs therein and the defendants took separate appeals. The result of the fifth action does not appear. In the present action Mrs. Traylen, who was one of the passengers riding in the Citraro machine at the time of the accident, obtained a verdict for damages against both defendants for the personal injuries she received as a result of the collision. The judgment in one of the other actions has this day been affirmed

(Florence Edgar, a Minor, etc.,

Citraro et al.

(No. 6865 and No. 6867),

ante,

p. 163,

post,

p. 764 [297 Pac. 645, 651]), and except as hereinafter noted, the evidence in the present case as to the manner in which the accident happened is substantially the same as in that case, and the essential facts are set forth in the opinion therein. Most of the points urged for a reversal of the judgment in the present action also are disposed of in the opinion in that case, and consequently it will be unnecessary to consider the same here.

The state of the record in the present case differs from the one in that case, however, in this: There the court instructed that Pratt was guilty of negligence as a matter of law, but left the question of Citraro’s negligence for the jury to determine; whereas, here the jury was instructed that both defendants were guilty of negligence as a matter of law. The instruction read as follows: “I instruct you that under the evidence in this case that the defendants are, and each of them is, as a matter of law, guilty of negligence and the question which you are to determine before liability can attach to defendants, and before any question of damage should be considered by you, is whether or not the plaintiff Frances P. Traylen, was guilty of contributory negligence.”

Traylen v. Citraro

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THE COURT.

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