Farley v. Hampson
| Citation | 323 Mass. 550,83 N.E.2d 165 |
| Parties | ROSALIND FARLEY v. ARA J. HAMPSON. |
| Decision Date | 03 January 1949 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
October 26, 1948.
Present: QUA, C.
J., LUMMUS, DOLAN WILKINS, & WILLIAMS, JJ.
Negligence, Gross Motor vehicle, Assumption of risk, Contributory.
In an action for personal injuries sustained by a guest in an automobile which left the road and collided with a pole at a curve, a finding that the operator was grossly negligent was warranted by evidence that he was driving at an excessive speed while aware that the steering gear was defective and liable to lock, and that it locked on the curve so that he could not turn the steering wheel.
A finding that a guest in an automobile, injured when it left the road and collided with a pole at a curve, either had assumed the risk of the injury, or was guilty of contributory negligence, by remaining in the automobile for six hours, during much of which period it was driven at an excessive speed, was not required as a matter of law where on the evidence a finding was warranted that the accident was caused by a combination of excessive speed and a defective mechanism of the steering gear of which the operator, but not the guest, was aware.
TORT. Writ in the First District Court of Southern Middlesex dated December 11 1944.
On removal to the Superior Court, the action was tried before Baker, J.
D. A. Foley & J.
J. Brady, for the plaintiff, submitted a brief.
No argument nor brief for the defendant.
This is an action of tort for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while riding as a guest in an automobile operated by the defendant on Waverley Street in Framingham on January 16, 1944. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff and the case is here on her exception to the entering of a verdict for the defendant under leave reserved.
There was evidence that the accident in which the plaintiff was injured occurred about 5 A.M. The plaintiff was sitting on the rear seat of the automobile with a young man, and a girl friend of hers was sitting on the front seat with the defendant. The girls had met the men about eleven o'clock on the previous evening and thereafter until the time of the accident the four had spent the night riding over the roads in the vicinity of Framingham, with the defendant driving.
Much of the time the automobile was proceeding at a speed approximating seventy miles per hour. At times protests about the speed were made by the plaintiff but she continued on the ride although during the evening two or more stops were made and once in Natick the occupants of the automobile left it to go into a house. While returning to the home of the plaintiff in Framingham, at a place where the road, level and forty feet in width, curved sharply to the right, the automobile, driven at a speed of...
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