Bradford v. Edmands

Decision Date17 April 1963
Citation30 Cal.Rptr. 185,215 Cal.App.2d 159
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
PartiesSam BRADFORD, a minor, by and through his Guardian Ad Litem, Kay Ghilardi, and Werner A. Ghilardi, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. Eugenia EDMANDS, Defendant and Appellant. Kay Ghilardi, individually, Plaintiff in Intervention and Respondent. Civ. 19793.

Hadsell, Murman & Bishop, San Francisco, for appellant.

Vernon W. Humber, San Francisco, Johnson C. Montgomery, Redwood City, of counsel, for respondents.

DEVINE, Justice.

In this personal injury case, plaintiffs are Sam Bradford, a minor, by his guardian ad litem Kay Ghilardi (his mother), Werner A. Ghilardi, Kay's husband and step-father of the boy, for both the boy and his step-father were injured, and Kay Ghilardi, in her own right, claiming the reasonable value of nursing care given to her son. The sole defendant is Eugenia Edmands.

The jury awarded plaintiff Bradford $25,700, and Kay Ghilardi $1,950. It found for defendant and against Werner A. Ghilardi. On motions for new trial the dispositions were: (1) motion for new trial of Bradford 'granted upon the sole issue of measure of damages and upon the ground that the evidence is insufficient to justify the verdict. If upon appeal it is determined that the order contained in the foregoing sentence is erroneous, plaintiff's motion for new trial of this cause of action involving the plaintiff Sam Bradford is granted upon the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict'; (2) plaintiff Kay Ghilardi's motion for new trial denied; (3) plaintiff Werner A. Ghilardi's motion for new trial granted on the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict.

Scope of the Appeals and Appellant's Contentions

Defendant appeals (1) from the order granting new trial to Werner A. Ghilardi, upon the ground that as a matter of law Ghilardi was guilty of contributory negligence which proximately caused his injuries; (2) from the judgment in favor of Sam Bradford, upon the ground that as a matter of law the sole proximate cause of Bradford's injuries was negligence on the part of Ghilardi; (3) from the order granting new trial to Sam Bradford on the sole issue of damages, upon the grounds (a) that the verdict in favor of Bradford is adequate as a matter of law, and (b) that it was an abuse of discretion to grant a motion for new trial as to damages only, because the jury may have failed to give a decisive and uncompromised verdict as to liability; and (4) from the judgment in favor of Kay Ghilardi, upon the grounds (a) that the law does not allow recovery by a mother against a third person for nursing services rendered to her son, and (b) that there was not evidence to support the award. Appellant asks this court to reverse the judgment in favor of Sam Bradford, or if this is not done, that the order granting him a new trial be reversed, or if this is not done, that the new trial be on all issues, not on damages only.

Facts of the Accident

On August 25, 1958, shortly past ten at night, Werner Ghilardi was driving westward on the Livermore-Pleasanton highway, a two-lane road, the lanes of which were about ten feet wide, and beyond which were shoulders of three to six feet. A semitruck and two trailers were coming easterly. Appellant, going westward, commenced to pass the Ghilardi car, hesitated, and then proceeded. The truck driver pulled off the road onto the shoulder in order, he testified, to avoid a head-on collision with appellant's car, and Ghilardi pulled off on his side at about the same moment, according to the truck driver and a witness, Mrs. Godfrey, who had been driving an automobile back of Ghilardi's. Ghilardi testified he pulled off the road because if appellant stayed in her lane there would be a major collision. Ghilardi testified he rode the shoulder a short distance, saw a telephone pole in front of him and turned back to the road, and lost control of the car which started 'spinning out.' The car crossed the road and struck the truck, which was on the opposite shoulder, and the truck in turn went out of control, crossed the road and struck Mrs. Godfrey's car. There is dispute as to whether appellant's car was staddling the center line of the narrow road, as Ghilardi testified, or was wholly on its left side of the road, as appellant testified. Appellant's car, after passing Ghilardi, returned to the right side and went on its way without striking anything, but appellant's daughter said, 'Mother, the truck,' and appellant, looking in the rear view mirror, saw that the truck, now stopped, had crossed the road. She told her husband this, upon her arrival home, and both went to the scene, where Ghilardi and Bradford were lying in the road. Appellant told a highway patrol officer that the truck had not seemed too close until she pulled out, and that she felt that she must have been responsible because the truck was too close and had to pull off onto the shoulder.

Bradford's Injuries

Because of the presumption, stated below, in favor of the orders made by the court, it is unnecessary to state the evidence which favors the defense on this subject. The evidence most advantageous to plaintiff's case is this: that he was thrown from the vehicle and was rendered unconscious; he had a fractured shoulder but there is no residual injury thereof; he suffered a brain contusion and a basal skull fracture; there is evidence of atrophy of the left hemisphere of the brain where the contusion occurred; his intelligence quotient has diminished (in the opinion of a neurosurgeon appointed by the court, the diminution was because of the accident); he is subject to fatigue, has difficulty concentrating, has a speech problem, and has poor coordination; the neurosurgeon who attended him testified that his fatiguability and his confusion when he becomes batigued might cause his employment in the future to be limited to that of simple labor. Itemized special damages for Bradford were $2,968.59, and there were other expenses of about $400. Thus the verdict for general damages for Bradford was about $22,300.

Facts Relating to Services Performed by Kay Ghilardi

Mrs. Ghilardi, mother of Sam Bradford, filed a complaint in intervention in which, after alleging negligence of defendant in substantially the same terms as was done by the original plaintiffs, she alleges that she had been profitably employed before the accident, and that she had been unable to attend to her usual occupation (nursing) because of the necessity of her rendering services in the care and treatment of her husband and her son, and thereby was caused a monetary loss because of the accident. By the pretrial conference order, the theory of plaintiff in intervention was changed somewhat to contitute a cause of action for services rendered to the minor son, Sam Bradford, and nothing was claimed for loss of income, as such, and nothing was claimed for nursing services rendered to the husband.

The evidence shows that a considerable amount of nursing care was given by the wife to the husband because his jaws were wired together and feeding was a difficult task; but there is almost nothing in the evidence relating to nursing care given to the son, a fact which seems to be recognized by counsel for respondents in his brief, wherein he says that the jury 'could infer' that Mrs. Ghilardi spent a great deal of time caring for her son. This is not the sort of thing which is usually the subject of inference, because direct evidence would be so readily available. We have scanned the pages of the transcript to which respondents' counsel refers us, and all that we can find about nursing services rendered to the son is that for about a week after he came from the hospital he had to be fed. There was testimony about the difficulty of the son in walking 'without help,' but nothing about the role played by the mother. There was testimony that she helped him with his homework and learned a good deal of history for herself in the process. The jury awarded her an amount almost exactly equal to her income for a half year.

It may be pointed out at this time (the relevancy is, in part, to the limited new trial of Bradford's case), that the court instructed the jury that 'A parent is entitled to recovery for the reasonable value of the parent's care or attention which, he, himself, or herself, may have rendered to his child as a result of the injuries received from an accident proximately caused by the negligence of another.'

The Order Granting New Trial

In the order granting new trial to Ghilardi, and limited new trial to Bradford, the judge gave his reasoning at some length, which in the main was that defendant's negligence was the proximate cause of the accident, and that Ghilardi in turning off the road, as the truck driver on the other side did, was acting in response to imminent peril and that the jury had not attended sufficiently to the instruction on imminent peril, and that the court may have failed to instruct adequately upon the rule. The judge also referred to another personal injury case arising from the same accident, in which the truck driver and the driver of a vehicle which had been...

To continue reading

Request your trial
12 cases
  • Jehl v. Southern Pac. Co.
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • June 2, 1967
    ...as a matter of law. (See Yarrow v. State of California, 53 Cal.2d 427, 434, 2 Cal.Rptr. 137, 348 P.2d 687; Bradford v. Edmands, 215 Cal.App.2d 159, 166--167, 30 Cal.Rptr. 185.) No such adequacy appears Plaintiff's right leg was amputated below the knee; his left leg was so seriously injured......
  • Bailey v. County of San Joaquin, Civ. S-08-543 LKK/KJM.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
    • November 16, 2009
    ...motion for summary judgment as to all other claims is granted with respect to Eddie. Plaintiffs cite to Bradford v. Edmands, 215 Cal.App.2d 159, 30 Cal.Rptr. 185 (1963) in support of their claim that Eddie suffered damages because of defendants' negligence. Specifically, plaintiffs argue th......
  • Liodas v. Sahadi
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • April 11, 1977
    ...judge's decision.' (Myers v. King (1969) 272 Cal.App.2d 571, 581, 77 Cal.Rptr. 625, 632 (citations omitted); Bradford v. Edmands (1963) 215 Cal.App.2d 159, 167, 30 Cal.Rptr. 185.) () (However, even when it appears that the issue of liability was correctly determined, a new trial limited to ......
  • Figliomeni v. Board of Ed. of City School Dist. of Syracuse
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • December 2, 1975
    ...cases in which serious injuries go totally uncompensated save for relatively small, undisputed special damages. (Bradford v. Edmands, 215 Cal.App.2d 159, 167, 30 Cal.Rptr. 185; see Brown v. Richard H. Wacholz, Inc., 10 Cir., 467 F.2d 18; De Luca v. Wells, 58 Misc.2d 878, 879, 297 N.Y.S.2d 3......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT