Gonyer v. Russell
| Citation | 160 F. Supp. 537 |
| Decision Date | 19 March 1958 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 2031. |
| Parties | Helen GONYER, Administratrix of the Estate of Edward H. Gonyer, Plaintiff, v. James H. RUSSELL and Edmund Francis Reynolds, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island |
Albert Lisker, Walter J. Hennessey, Providence, R. I., for plaintiff.
John G. Carroll, Providence, R. I., for defendants.
The plaintiff in her capacity as administratrix of the estate of her late husband, Edward Gonyer, has brought this action under the provisions of Chapter 477 of the General Laws of Rhode Island, Revision of 1938, to recover damages for his death which she alleges was caused by the negligence of the defendants. The action was tried to the Court.
The accident resulting in the death of the plaintiff's intestate occurred on the Post Road, a public highway in the Town of North Kingstown in the State of Rhode Island at about 5 o'clock p. m. on June 25, 1955. The weather was clear and the road surface was dry. Post Road in the vicinity of the scene of the accident runs approximately north and south. It is a four lane cement highway, the two lanes on the westerly side thereof being for south bound traffic and the other two for traffic going in the opposite direction, and has a tar shoulder on both sides.
At the scene of the accident on the west side of Post Road, heading south, Yorktown Road intersects but does not cross Post Road at two points of entrance and extends westerly into a residential development known as Yorktown Manor. Decedent was a resident of this development at the time of his death.
At the time of the accident the defendant Reynolds as the employee of the defendant Russell was driving a large tractor and trailer, approximately 42 feet long, owned by Russell, in a southerly direction in the first or most westerly lane of said Post Road. The tractor and trailer weighed approximately 18,300 pounds and carried a load estimated to weigh between 5000 and 6000 pounds. Both the tractor and trailer were equipped with air brakes operated by the driver with a foot pedal and with hand operated air emergency brakes. According to the defendants these brakes were inspected daily and were in first class operating condition.
On June 25, 1955, the defendant Reynolds was 19 years of age and had been employed as the driver of the tractor and trailer for approximately three months. His only prior experience in the operation of such a unit was that gained from so-called practice in operating it in a vacant lot behind the garage of his employer. Riding in the cab of the tractor with him at the time was a boy whose age was between "six and nine years" who had gone along with him for a ride.
Reynolds in substance testified that while he was driving southerly in said first south bound lane at a point about 300 feet north of the northerly entrance to Yorktown Road, he first saw the Nash sedan, then being operated in the opposite direction by the decedent, approaching and turning toward the northerly entrance to Yorktown Road, in the inner north bound lane; that its directional signal was flashing, indicating its driver was planning to make a left turn across the highway in front of him into said Yorktown Road; that he (Reynolds) blew his horn to indicate to the decedent that he intended to proceed ahead and that he was then going about 30 miles per hour; that despite this signal of his intention, he reduced his speed to 15 miles per hour and that the Nash continued into the lane adjoining that in which he was proceeding and then stopped; that when the tractor and trailer was approximately 80 feet from the Nash it started up and that although he applied his brakes, reduced his speed and pulled his vehicle to the right to avoid the Nash, the latter vehicle ran into and struck the tractor at a point 3 to 4 feet easterly from the westerly line of said first south bound cement lane, the tractor and trailer being mostly off the cement lane and on the shoulder of the road as a result of his efforts to avoid a collision with the Nash. He admitted that there was no other vehicle in either of the so-called south bound lanes before the collision and that there was nothing to prevent his steering the unit operated by him to the left and thereby passing in the rear of the Nash.
After the collision the tractor and trailer continued southerly, struck and sheared a pole on the westerly side of the Post Road, and eventually came to a stop on the easterly shoulder of the Post Road headed in a northerly...
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Reilly v. U.S.
...required to accept it. Tables of this sort "are merely guides to assist a court or jury in arriving at its verdict." Gonyer v. Russell, 160 F.Supp. 537, 540 (D.R.I.1958). They "are not inflexible rules which the [trier] must follow." Renaldi v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R. Co., 230 F......
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Varney v. Taylor
...and deducted from the reasonably anticipated earnings of decedent. See Barnes v. Smith, 305 F.2d 226 (10th Cir. 1962); Gonyer v. Russell, 160 F.Supp. 537 (D.C.R.I.1958); Pittman v. Merriman, 80 N.H. 295, 117 A. 18, 26 A.L.R. 589 (1922); Caudle v. Southern Railway Co., 242 N.C. 466, 88 S.E.2......
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Pray v. Narragansett Imp. Co.
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