Thomas v. Visalia Electric R.R. Co. (1915) · DecisionDepot

Thomas v. Visalia Electric R.R. Co.

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Mar 24, 1915 No. Sac. No. 2168.Published

Before: Henshaw

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Holding. The court held that the trial court properly refused defendant's requested instructions because they incorrectly imposed a duty on the plaintiff to ensure the soundness of her vehicle regardless of notice and erroneously suggested a duty to carry lights to inspect for highway obstructions.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in refusing defendant's requested instructions regarding inferences of contributory negligence or defective equipment.
Whether a driver of a horse-drawn vehicle has a legal duty to carry lights to inspect for highway obstructions caused by others.

Disposition. Affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“A litigant is entitled to proper instructions bearing upon any legitimate legal inference which may be drawn from evidence given.”

“It would in effect make the plaintiff an insurer of the soundness of the vehicle in which she was riding.”

“We know of no law imposing any such duty in the exercise of ordinary care upon the driver of a horse-drawn vehicle upon the public highway.”

Synopsis

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Frank Karr, J. W. McKinley, A. W. Ashburn, Jr., Powers & MeFadzean, and W. R. Miller, for Appellant..

HENSHAW, J.

Plaintiff sued to recover damages for personal injuries which she received in the manner hereinafter set forth. The cause was tried before a jury, which awarded her damages in the sum of three thousand three hundred and sixty-eight dollars. Defendant moved for a new trial. Upon denial of its motion it appealed from the judgment and from the order of the court.

The complaint alleged that plaintiff, in company with three other persons, was riding in a two-horse surrey along one of the public roads of Tulare County. Her brother was driving. It was in the night-time. The railroad tracks of the defendant crossed this.highway and the crossing was so negligently maintained that there were not suitable approaches, the rails standing above the surface of the highway from four to -six inches. The tracks of defendant did not cross this highway at right angles, but at an acute or obtuse angle, depending upon the direction of one’s approach to them. As a result, it is asserted, that when the wheels of the vehicle struck the high rails, the wheels cramped, the double-tree broke, the single-trees and pole fell to the ground, and the horses became frightened, ran away, overturned the vehicle, and inflicted the injuries for which compensation was sought. The answer was by denial and set forth contributory negligence. Defendant having no eye witnesses to the accident, nor any eye witnesses to the physical condition of the surrey, produced evidence that many other people had driven across these tracks before and immediately after the accident and had experienced no particular difficulty in so doing. Care was required and it was necessary to drive slowly, but that was all. Upon this evidence the defendant sought to have the jury draw the inference that the accident was occasioned either through the careless and reckless driving of plaintiff's brother, or through some defect in the vehicle itself; upon the one hand, that reckless driving, where care was required, occasioned the accident; upon the other, that if the vehicle' was being driven with due care, then the vehicle itself, by reason of rusted bolts or defective double-tree was not physically

[661]

capable of bearing the strain of ordinary careful driving, and so broke down and occasioned the accident. Certain instructions were proposed by defendant in support of this view, and the refusal of the court to give these instructions is the matter complained of on this appeal.

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have been known by the exercise of ordinary care. To like effect are the other instructions also refused by the court. Still another one, standing upon slightly different ground, informed the jury that in determining “whether or not plaintiff exercised ordinary care, yon are instructed that you are to consider the circumstances surrounding the said plaintiff, in determining what amount of care should reasonably be expected of a person traveling along a road as she was. In this respect, you will take into consideration the fact that she was traveling at night, the rate of speed at which she was traveling, the question of whether it was dark enough to make the use of lights on said vehicle a requisite of ordinary prudence, and the question of whether or not any lights were carried on said vehicle to show the condition of the road ahead, and all the circumstances and surroundings.” The difficulty with this instruction, which justified the court’s refusal to give it, is that while in general terms it properly advises the jury that they were to determine from all the facts, circumstances, and surroundings in the case, whether plaintiff’s driver was exercising ordinary care, they are specifically told to consider whether “a requisite or ordinary prudence” required plaintiff to carry light sufficient to show the defective condition of the highway. We know of no law imposing any such duty in the exercise of ordinary care upon the driver of a horse-drawn vehicle upon the public highway. To the contrary, one who obstructs the highway, even under license, is under duty to maintain proper barricades and warnings by day and proper signal lights at night. There was in this, at least, an intimation to the jury that it was plaintiff’s duty to carry upon her surrey some sort of a search light, not as a mere warning signal to other approaching vehicles, but to enable her to determine whether somebody else had obstructed the passage of a highway that she was entitled to believe was free and unobstructed. This particular instruction, for the indicated reason, was properly refused.

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Synopsis

HENSHAW, J.

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