Briggs v. Koyer

STURTEVANT, J. This is an action to recover damages for injuries suffered in an automobile collision. The trial [488]court made findings in favor of the plaintiff and from the judgment entered thereon the defendant Koyer has appealed.

Third Street in Los Angeles runs east and west. Gramercy Place runs north and south and intersects Third Street at right angles. On the east side of Gramercy, Third Street has considerable grade up toward St. Andrews. The southeast corner of Gramercy and Third consists of elevated ground on which the trees and buildings are so located that the view of the drivers of vehicles is decidedly limited looking from one street into the other.

.At about 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the eighteenth day of May, 1929, the plaintiff was driving northerly along Gramercy Place. He so continued until he was near Third Street. He had been traveling fifteen to twenty miles an hour. When he had approached to within five feet of the southerly line of Third Street, looking across the corner, he saw the defendant’s car, a Marmon sedan. He then slowed down not quite to a stop. At that time the defendant’s car was two hundred feet east of Gramercy Place. The plaintiff estimated that he had time to get across the intersection and he started. When the front wheels of his car were about five feet south of the north boundary of west Third Street the impact occurred. After he entered the intersection he did not apply his brakes but drove forward. When plaintiff saw the defendant’s car it was at the top of the incline and two hundred feet east of the intersection. The plaintiff did not again observe the defendant’s car until the time of the crash. At the time he noticed the defendant’s car the witness could not state whether it was going fifty miles or twenty miles. His final statement in that regard was that he estimated it was going between thirty and fifty miles an hour. After the plaintiff estimated that he had plenty of time to cross the intersection he then disregarded the defendant’s car. At the time he estimated the defendant’s speed the plaintiff did not know a collision was imminent.

The defendant states that the doctrine of comparative negligence is not recognized in California in a case of this nature and if the negligence of the plaintiff directly contributed to the injury he is barred from recovery. Both propositions will be conceded for all of the purposes of this case. The defendant next asserts that when the plaintiff [489]