Salsberry v. Smith

GRIFFIN, J. This is an appeal by plaintiff from a judgment on a jury verdict in favor of defendant in a personal injury action. The complaint charges that on July 26, 1946, defendant negligently drove an automobile into collision with plaintiff, a pedestrian, at the intersection of Highway 6 and Inyo Street, in Mojave, Kern County. Defendant denied generally the allegations and pleaded contributory negligence of plaintiff.

Highway 6 runs north and south and is 60 feet in width with a double center line and two traffic lanes on each side thereof. The curb is abutted by a sidewalk 10 feet wide. It is intersected at right angles by Inyo Street, which runs east and west and is 58 feet wide, forming a “T” intersection. The center of Inyo Street is unmarked and is likewise abutted by a sidewalk 10 feet wide. A pedestrian crosswalk 10 feet wide and marked on the pavement with white lines extends between the northeast corner and the southeast corner of the intersection. Plaintiff was in that crosswalk at the time she was struck. A hotel stood on the northeast corner of the intersection and parked cars were in front of it causing, to some extent, an obstruction to the view, under section 511, subdivision 4 of the Vehicle Code.

About noon on the day of the accident plaintiff, aged 66, a typist and notary, had been to the post office south of Inyo Street, and was returning to her office which was on the north side of that street about one-half block east of Highway 6.

Defendant testified that he was driving his car south on Highway 6 just west of the center line, about 25 miles per hour, with the intention of making a left turn; that after he reached the east-west crosswalk he rounded the center of the intersection and did not cut the corner; that while making the turn and traveling about 18 miles per hour he saw plaintiff standing on the sidewalk at the southeast corner; that [124]he looked down at his speedometer and when he looked up again plaintiff was about 3 feet in front of him in the southerly half of the north-south crosswalk; that he applied his brakes and stopped within a few feet but the front portion of his car struck plaintiff and she fell to the pavement at a point indicated about 3 feet east of the east crosswalk marking and a short distance south of the center line of Inyo Street; that his front wheels stopped on that crosswalk marking. He then testified that the brake marks showed that the wheels on the left side of his car were then about 4 feet south of the center line of Inyo Street. Defendant was not asked as to whether or not he gave any signal indicating a left-hand turn.