Bucci v. Butler, s. 8822-8825.
| Decision Date | 20 June 1947 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 8822-8825.,s. 8822-8825. |
| Citation | 53 A.2d 705 |
| Parties | BUCCI v. BUTLER et al. (four cases). |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Charles A. Walsh, Judge.
Actions on the case for negligence brought respectively by Arthur Bucci, as father of injured minors, by Dolores Bucci, a minor, and by Antonia Bucci, a minor, against Leo Butler, and others, doing business as Leo Butler Company, to recover for personal injuries. Decision for defendant in each case, and plaintiffs bring exceptions.
Exceptions sustained in part and overruled in part, and case remitted for a new trial.
Mortimer G. Cummings and John A. Notte, Jr., both of Providence, for plaintiffs.
Henry M. Boss and Francis W. Conlan, both of Providence, for defendants.
These actions on the case for negligence were brought respectively by a father and his two minor daughters to recover damages alleged to have resulted from personal injuries to the daughters in consequence of a motor truck backing into them. The cases were tried together in the superior court before a justice thereof sitting without a jury and at the conclusion of the evidence he rendered a decision for the defendant in each case.
The four cases are in this court on plaintiffs' exceptions to these decisions and to certain rulings on the admission of evidence. Since recovery in the father's cases depends on defendants' liability for the daughters' injuries, and since the cases of the daughters present the same question as to defendants' liability, we shall, unless otherwise stated, treat all the cases as if only the case of Dolores is before us. Furthermore, since the defendants conducted their business under a firm name, they will hereinafter be referred to as an entity.
The plaintiff's declaration is in three counts. The breach of duty alleged in each count is that the defendant, its agents and servants, ‘carelessly and negligently operated, controlled and directed’ a certain truck, with the specification, in the first count, of failing to observe the plaintiff; in the second count, of failing to warn her; and, in the third count, of general negligence.
The evidence for the plaintiff tended to show the following facts. On November 23, 1939, the defendant was engaged in laying sewer pipes in King street, North Providence, in this state, under a contract with that town, which contract required the defendant to remove all soil remaining after the pipes had been laid. The Buccis lived on King street, about opposite the place where the defendant was operating a steam shovel on that day. There was a picket fence and an uncurbed dirt sidewalk, about five feet wide, in front of these premises.
Surplus soil was loaded onto trucks by the steam shovel and, if no trucks were immediately available, the soil was deposited on the side of King street across from the Bucci home. The only part of the highway open to traffic adjoined the sidewalk in front of Bucci's house. When trucks were available to receive the surplus soil, they were so operated on this portion of the highway as to be in a position for loading by the steam shovel. Upon request, the defendant gave the surplus soil to, and loaded it onto trucks of, recipients which would remove it from the site. The Hennessy Dairy owned and operated one of these trucks.
About two o'clock in the afternoon of November 23 the Bucci children, Dolores and Antonia, four and two years of age respectively, were leaning against the picket fence in front of the Bucci property watching the steam shovel. While they were in this position, a truck of the Hennessy Dairy, hereinafter generally called the truck, came for surplus soil to the site where the defendant was operating the steam shovel. A man, who was standing at the side of the steam shovel, then, by motions, directed the movement of the truck so that it would be in a position to receive the surplus soil from the steam shovel. In the course of such maneuvering, the truck was backed across the sidewalk, striking and injuring both children.
As to what the man who was standing at the side of the steam shovel did in directing the truck, Anna E. DiOrio, a witness for the plaintiff, who was in the front yard of her house which was almost across from the Bucci home, testified as follows:
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The witness further testified that, although she did not know the name of the man who was directing the truck, she had ‘seen him on the job there before...
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Pastorelli v. Associated Engineers, Inc.
...performance of the work undertaken by it under its contract, to which contract the plaintiff was not a party. See also Bucci v. Butler, 1947, 73 R.I. 60, 53 A.2d 705. The complaint in the instant action sounds in negligence. The plaintiff contends that the defendants and each of them were g......
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De Sessa v. City of White Plains
...Collin's duty to take precautions against any dangerous condition which he saw or had reason to believe was developing (cf. Bucci v. Butler, 73 R.I. 60, 53 A.2d 705 (holding that one who directs truck in backing may be liable for negligence in allowing the truck to strike The evidence here ......