Johnson v. City of Santa Monica

THE COURT. The plaintiffs, husband and wife, brought this action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by the wife when a horse she was riding ran into a truck loaded with a ton and a half of broken marble and operated by the defendant, McEntee. The latter was driving the truck in the employ of the defendant, City of Santa Monica. The court made findings and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The defendants prosecute this appeal on [474]the ground that the evidence does not support the finding that the defendant MeEntee was guilty of negligence.

The accident occurred on the morning of May 25, 1935, at the intersection of Westminster Avenue and Centinella Boulevard in Los Angeles- County. Westminster Avenue is a dirt road which runs in an easterly and westerly direction and ends at the intersection at right angles with Centinella Boulevard from the west. Centinella Boulevard is a paved highway. The vicinity was sparsely settled. Extensive unfeneed plowed fields opened on both sides of Westminster Avenue. The plaintiffs lived on Wasatch Street, off Westminster Avenue, a distance of approximately three blocks from the intersection of Centinella and Westminster. They had purchased a twelve year old horse three weeks previously. Since its purchase the horse had been ridden once by the plaintiffs’ son about twelve days before the accident. The balance of the time it had been kept on a tether. The plaintiff wife was about 34 years of age and had not ridden a horse for fourteen years. On the May morning mentioned she mounted the horse and with a companion, a Mrs. Crammer, who was riding another horse, she started out toward Westminster Avenue. Her horse turned into Westminster toward Centinella and began to gallop. As it approached the intersection it increased its speed and when the horse reached the intersection it gave two or three lunges forward and ran head on into the cab of the city truck, catapulting Mrs. Johnson on to the ground on the opposite side of the truck.

The defendant MeEntee was driving the truck northerly on Centinella at a spéed of about eighteen miles per hour and on the easterly side of the highway. An automobile was immediately ahead of him and another city truck was following him. Behind this second truck witnesses Siegal and Kirkham were riding in an automobile. When MeEntee observed the plaintiff wife she and the horse were about 125 feet from the intersection. When the horse had just about reached the intersection MeEntee first observed that the plaintiff wife had lost control of her horse. At that moment his truck was entering the intersection. He immediately turned to the right and put on the brakes. He stopped off the highway to the right within twenty feet after the horse ran into the truck.