Miller v. Lyons

[233]

THE COURT.

—This is an appeal from a judgment of the superior court of the county of Los Angeles awarding to the plaintiff damages in the sum of ten thousand dollars for the death of her husband, George Miller, caused by the alleged negligence of the appellant’s employees. The ease was tried by the court without a jury.

In appellant’s brief the sole ground of the appeal is thus stated: “We insist that there is no evidence whatsoever justifying the judgment, and that it is against the weight of all of the evidence. This is our sole basis for appeal.”

The casualty occurred after dark and at about 7:30 o ’clock on the evening of November 7, 1922. At the time of the accident the deceased, an oil-well worker, was driving a Dodge automobile along Norwalk road, a highway having a paved surface twenty-two feet wide, in a southerly direction and at a speed of approximately twenty-five miles an hour. Norwalk road is intersected at right angles at a certain point by a narrow road approximately fifteen feet in width. The employees of the appellant were operating a truck upon said Norwalk road in a northerly direction just prior to the accident. The truck was twenty-four feet long and carried a steel girder forty-seven and one-half feet in length, known in oil-field terms as a Kelley, diagonally across the bed thereof. It was the purpose of the driver of the truck to back it in a westerly direction into the narrow intersecting road, and to accomplish this purpose he turned the steering wheel so as to face the truck in an easterly . direction down the intersecting road, intending later to back in a westerly direction. While the truck and its load were thus obstructing the entire width of the Norwalk road the deceased came upon the scene in his automobile. He was on the westerly and proper side of the Norwalk road when his car collided with that portion of the steel girder which protruded beyond the rear end of the bed of the truck. The deceased died shortly thereafter from the injuries thus incurred.

At the time of the accident, as established by the evidence and conceded by appellant, the front end of the truck was approximately three feet east of the easterly edge of the paved portion of the Norwalk road and the girder protruded about three feet beyond said front end of the truck. In this