Carpenter v. Anderson

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Citation: Carpenter v. Anderson, 301 Mass. 550, 17 N.E.2d 898 (Mass. 1938)
• Decision Date: 05 December 1938
• Parties: DOROTHY F. E. CARPENTER v. WILLIAM E. ANDERSON. JOSEPH H. CARPENTER v. SAME.

301 Mass. 550

17 N.E.2d 898

DOROTHY F. E. CARPENTER v. WILLIAM E. ANDERSON. JOSEPH H. CARPENTER v. SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

December 5, 1938

November 17, 1938.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., DONAHUE LUMMUS, DOLAN, & RONAN, JJ.

Practice, Civil New trial. Motor Vehicle, Operation.

The denial of a motion for a new trial, based upon grounds which were addressed to the discretion of the judge or which could have been raised at the trial, showed no error of law.

Evidence of the presence of two persons beside the operator in the front seat of an automobile, without more, would not warrant a finding of a violation of G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 90, Section 13.

THREE ACTIONS OF TORT. Writs in the District Court of Eastern Essex, the first two dated October 21, 1936, the third January 15, 1937.

On removal to the Superior Court, the actions were tried before Dillon, J. There were verdicts for the plaintiffs in the sums of $1,500 $250, and $3,500, respectively. The defendant alleged exceptions.

R. H. Sproul, for the defendant.

F. G. Moulton, (S.

Pearl & G. E. Mears with him,) for the plaintiffs.

RONAN, J. The plaintiffs in the first and third cases were riding on the front seat of an automobile, as the guests of the operator one Curran, along a public highway, when it came into collision with an automobile driven by the defendant. These two plaintiffs were minors. The plaintiff in the second case was the father of the plaintiff in the first case. The jury returned a verdict for each of the plaintiffs. The negligence of the defendant and the contributory negligence of the minor plaintiffs were questions of fact. The defendant filed no motions for directed verdicts but excepted to the refusal to grant his motions for a new trial. The grounds of the motions were matters which could have been raised at the trial or which were addressed to the discretion of the judge, and their denial shows no error of law. Commonwealth v. Millen, 290 Mass. 406 , 408. Murnane v. MacDonald, 294 Mass. 372 , 374.

In the first and third cases -- and in the second with a slight change in form but not in substance -- the defendant excepted to the refusal of the judge to give these two instructions. "5. That under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 90, Section 13, the presence of three people in the front seat of the Curran car may be found by the jury to have hindered or interfered with the operation of the Curran car and to have been a contributing cause of the accident. 7. If the two plaintiffs were riding on the front seat of the Curran automobile, and their presence limited the driver of the automobile in his exercise of control over...