Glickman v. Pacific Electric Railway Co.

YORK, P. J. This appeal is prosecuted by the plaintiff Glickman from a judgment which was entered pursuant to a directed verdict in favor of defendants.

The instant action was instituted by said plaintiff to recover damages for personal injuries and property damage sustained by him and for damages for the wrongful death of his wife resulting from a collision between an automobile which he was driving and one of respondent corporation’s interurban street cars which was being operated by respondent Alexander.

The accident occurred at 1:30 p. m. on August 14, 1940, a bright, sunny day, at the intersection of Bay Street and [455]Trolleyway in the city of Santa Monica. Bay Street is 40 feet wide, runs east and west, is paved with dry concrete or asphalt, its grade not exceeding one per cent, and intersects Trolleyway at a right angle. Trolleyway is 95 feet wide, runs north and south, and is a private right-of-way upon which respondent corporation maintains two sets of car tracks located 20% feet apart.

Appellant was familiar with the particular locality, having lived for three years prior to the accident on Bay Street about three-quarters of a block east of Main Street, which is the first street east of and running parallel to Trolleyway. On the day of the accident appellant, accompanied by his wife, was driving a 1925 Eeo automobile westerly on Bay Street on his way to the Pacific Ocean where he and his wife intended to bathe and swim. He brought his ear to a stop at Main Street, proceeded across said intersection and drove at a speed of 10 miles per hour a distance of 150 feet to the easterly line of Trolleyway. He continued to travel across Trolleyway at this speed until the moment of impact of his automobile with respondent’s street car which was moving southerly on Trolleyway on the westerly set of car tracks.

At the northeast corner of the intersection of Bay and Trolleyway, the view to the north along the tracks is obscured by an apartment house and a hedge maintained on the property line thereof, said property line being about 18 feet from the easterly or northbound tracks and about 44 feet easterly from the east rail of the westerly or southbound tracks. It was developed at the trial that when a person driving west on Bay Street 10 feet south of the north curb thereof reached a point 40 feet from the east rail of the southbound tracks, he could see north along the tracks on Trolleyway for at least half a mile.