Elliott v. Seattle Chain & Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1926
• Docket Number: 19986.
• Citation: 251 P. 117,141 Wash. 157
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: ELLIOTT v. SEATTLE CHAIN & MFG. CO.

251 P. 117

141 Wash. 157

ELLIOTT v. SEATTLE CHAIN & MFG. CO.

No. 19986.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 3, 1926

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Gilliam, Judge.

Action by William S. Elliott against the Seattle Chain &amp Manufacturing Company. Judgment for defendant, and from an order granting a new trial, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Poe Falknor, Falknor & Emory, of Seattle, for appellant.

Hugh M Caldwell, of Seattle, for respondent.

MACKINTOSH J.

This is an appeal from an order granting a new trial in a personal injury action, and the only inquiry is whether there is any evidence which should have been submitted to the jury. At the close of the case, the appellant's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence was sustained and a judgment made for the appellant. Thereafter, the respondent having made a motion for a new trial, the motion was granted.

The evidence, viewed as it should be in answering the question in this case, shows substantially that, about 6:30 or 7 o'clock on an August evening, an employee of the appellant parked his Ford car on the north side of Madison street, which is an east and west street in the city of Seattle, and, so far as we are concerned with it here, is laid out on a very steep grade; that the appellant's employee went across Madison street to a restaurant where he remained for about an hour; that when he came out he found that his car had disappeared, and after some investigation he found that it had gone westerly on Madison street and collided with the respondent, who at the time had been standing in front of his car, stationed by the south curb of Madison street some two or three blocks from the place where the Ford had been originally parked. For injuries which the respondent sustained, he brought this action.

There were no witnesses as to what occasioned the appellant's car to make the downhill trip. The testimony of appellant's employee is that he turned off the engine before leaving the car, that he cramped the front wheels in towards the curb, set the brakes, which were working properly, and took every precaution to prevent the car starting downhill in the direction in which it was headed. By the appellant's proof, it sought to establish that the probable cause of the car getting under way was that some passing automobile had struck the left rear hub of the Ford and had thus set the car in motion, and that this being the reason for the accident, there was no negligence on the part of the appellant shown by the evidence.

Under a city ordinance of Seattle it was unlawful for the appellant to park his automobile where this Ford was parked, and, if its being parked there was the proximate cause of the accident, that would be sufficient to sustain a recovery on the part of the respondent. The appellant urges that the parking had no connection with the accident, but that a separate and intervening cause occurred which was the proximate cause, and that the appellant was therefore not liable. The trouble with this position is that, as this court has said on several occasions, there may be more than one proximate cause, and, if the alleged striking of the appellant's Ford by some other car was an act which reasonably could have been anticipated or foreseen by the appellant when he parked his Ford, or if it was the natural and probable result of his illegal act in parking it where he did, there would arise a possibility of there having been two proximate causes of the injury to the respondent, who would be entitled to recovery against either or both of the participants. Even accepting the appellant's theory of the manner in which...