Hilton v. Carey

DORAN, J. This is an appeal by defendants from a judgment on the verdict of a jury in plaintiffs’ favor in an action for damages for injuries sustained as the result of an automobile accident.

The accident in question resulted in personal injuries to respondent Rabel Baker Rollice and in the death of Alba Hilton, the wife of respondent Harry Hilton, and occurred on July 7, 1937, at about eleven in the morning, when a 1928 Chrysler sedan, driven by the deceased, Alba Hilton, and a 1937 Pontiac sedan, driven by one of the appellants, collided at the intersection of West Fifth Street and Manhattan Place, in the City of Los Angeles.

Manhattan Place runs north and south, Fifth Street east and west, and the intersection in question is at right angles. It appears that just prior to the collision the Pontiac sedan was traveling south on Manhattan Place, and the Chrysler sedan west on Fifth Street. According to the testimony of one of the police officers who investigated the scene after the accident the point of impact was 18 feet south of the north curb line and 24 feet west of the east curb line in the intersection. Fifth Street at that point is 40 feet wide and Manhattan Place 45 feet wide, so that, according to the testimony of the officer, the cars collided in the northwest quarter and close to the center of the intersection, about two feet north and one and one-half feet west of the center of the intersection.

Pictures of the respective cars produced in evidence show damage to the right rear fender and a dent in the right front door of the Chrysler, and damage to the left front fender of the Pontiac.

The oral testimony, as in most automobile accident cases, is conflicting. Appellants contend that the physical facts establish beyond contradiction that the deceased, Alba Hilton, was guilty of negligence which was the sole proximate cause of the accident in question; and that error was committed by the court in giving certain instructions to the jury and in [377]refusing to give an instruction requested by defendants (appellants here).

Much of the appellants’ argument as to the physical facts would be more properly addressed to a jury than to an appellate court. The burden of it- is that the physical facts show uncontrovertibly that the right front of the Chrysler must have struck the left front of the Pontiac, and that therefore the Pontiac had first entered the intersection and had the right of way over the Chrysler. The main difficulty with this argument is that it completely ignores the damage shown to have been done to the right rear of the Chrysler.