Fitzgerald v. Boston & Northern St. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 21 May 1913 |
| Citation | 101 N.E. 1085,214 Mass. 435 |
| Parties | FITZGERALD REGAN CITY OF HAVERHILL v. REGAN CITY OF HAVERHILL v. REGAN CITY OF HAVERHILL v. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
W. Scott Peters, Harry J. Cole, and Frederick H. Tilton, all of Haverhill, for plaintiffs.
Sweeney & Cox, of Lawrence, for defendant.
These three cases, brought to recover damages caused by one and the same collision between an automobile owned by the city of Haverhill and a street car owned by the defendant, were tried together.
The machine had been purchased by the city for use in its street department under the direction and control of the superintendent of streets. One of the grounds set up in defense was that at the time of the accident the machine was not being used for the purpose for which it was bought, but in violation of St. 1909, c. 534, § 22, forbidding the use of an automobile without authority.
There was evidence that in obedience to orders given by John Cashman, the superintendent of streets, through his son Daniel, Regan, the regular chauffeur employed by the city in its street department to operate the automobile under the control and direction of the superintendent of streets, drove it, with Daniel, the plaintiff Fitzgerald and one Bryant as passengers, from the office of an express company situated on Washington street in the city, in which company both the superintendent of streets and his son were stockholders, to the superintendent's house situated on Hilldale avenue in the city; that Bryant was the agent of a company engaged in 'manufacturing and selling steam road rollers, scarifiers and road machines'; that a scarifier is used for the purpose of breaking up the surface of a road before it is relaid; that Bryant desired to sell to the city a scarifier for use upon the streets; that the superintendent previously had had business dealings on behalf of the city, but never otherwise, with Bryant representing said manufacturing company; that one of the purposes for which the automobile was driven from the express office to his house was to bring Bryant where the superintendent could talk on this business and that after Bryant arrived at the superintendent's house he stayed there twenty or thirty minutes, spending the time in trying to sell a scarifier to the city represented by the superintendent. Upon this evidence the jury certainly could find that in going from...
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