Bovette v. Los Angeles Transit Lines

DORAN, J. The plaintiff herein, passenger on a streetcar operated by the Los Angeles Transit Lines, has appealed from an adverse judgment entered upon a verdict denying recovery of damages for personal injuries alleged to have resulted from a collision between the streetcar and a motor truck driven by the other respondent, Max H. Schiller; and from the denial of a new trial. The collision occurred at approximately 1 p. m. on October 24, 1944, some 180 to 200 feet from the intersection of 11th Street and Grand Avenue in the city of LoS Angeles.

The record discloses that at the time of the collision the pavement was dry, the weather was clear; the streetcar was of the new streamlined design. Immediately prior to the accident the streetcar had been halted at the intersection by reason of traffic signals and to admit passengers. With the change in traffic signals the car proceeded along Grand Avenue towards a point where respondent Schiller’s truck had been parked adjacent to the curbing, facing in the same direction as the streetcar. The truck was about 18 feet in length with a stake body, and at the moment of collision was being moved by Schiller from its parked position into the flow of traffic. Schiller testified that before pulling out from the curb, “I looked down the street and I saw this streetcar there with the red lights set against it, so I got into the truck and I pulled up this (mechanical) arm with the rope . . . which indicates that I am going to make a left-hand turn. ’ ’ According to Schiller’s testimony, “maybe fifteen or twenty seconds” elapsed while maneuvering the truck from the parking place and before the collision occurred. Schiller also waited for two automobiles to pass before moving the truck into the stream of traffic, the truck then remaining in an “angled position,” some “two or three, four or five feet” away from the curb. The streetcar motorman testified that “When I was approximately fifteen or twenty feet away from the truck I realized the danger, that he might possibly pull on the rails. ’ ’ The record also contains the motorman’s statement, commented on by appellant: “I might have saw the truck sooner. I don’t recall how soon I saw the trucks.” There is also evidence that the motorman sounded the gong “one or more times.” It appears that the streetcar was in proper working order and the motorman testified that at 20 miles per hour it would require a space of 60 feet to stop the car, or 40 feet when traveling at 15 miles per hour, the latter speed being estimated as that of the car just previous to the collision.

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