Gross v. Boston, W. & N.Y. St. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 07 December 1933
• Citation: Gross v. Boston, W. & N.Y. St. Ry. Co., 117 Conn. 589, 169 A. 613 (Conn. 1933)
• Parties: GROSS v. BOSTON, W. & N.Y. ST. RY. CO. et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

169 A. 613

117 Conn. 589

GROSS v. BOSTON, W. & N.Y. ST. RY. CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 7, 1933

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edwin C. Dickenson Judge.

Action by Al Gross against the Boston, Worcester & New York Street Railway Company and others for damages for injuries sustained through negligence of the driver of defendant's bus.Verdict and judgment were for plaintiff, and named defendant appeals.

Philip Robert Shiff, of New Haven, for appellant.

Wilson C. Jainsen, of Hartford, for appellee.

Louis M. Schatz, of Hartford, for plaintiff Blatt in a companion case.

Jacob Bresnerkoff, of Hartford, for plaintiff Mandell in a companion case.

Leo J Dowling, of Hartford, for plaintiffs Senior and wife in companion case.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

HINMAN, Judge.

On the evening of September 5, 1932, the plaintiff and six other persons were passengers in a bus belonging to one Aselton, traveling from Boston to Hartford, which was in collision with a bus of the named defendant on Lake Bridge in Worcester, Mass. Actions brought by the plaintiff and four other passengers against both the named defendant and Aselton were tried together and verdicts returned and judgments rendered for the several plaintiffs against the company and in favor of Aselton.By stipulations the record in the instant case is to be treated as that in each of the others and the decision herein is decisive of all of the appeals." Defendant" in this opinion refers to the appellant, Boston, Worcester & New York Street Railway Company.Error is assigned in the refusal to set aside the verdict; also in failing to charge that the operator of appellant's bus had a right to assume, until the contrary appeared, that operators of other motor vehicles on the highway would act in a careful and lawful manner, that the operator of a motor vehicle proceeding directly ahead of him would give a timely warning or signal of his intention to stop, slow down, or change his direction, that no cars would be parked on the bridge contrary to local ordinances and other regulations prohibiting it, and that the driver was under no duty to anticipate that the car directly ahead would, without warning, collide with a car parked on the bridge.

Offers of proof by the plaintiff material to the assignments pertaining to the charge, as disclosed by the finding, were in substance as follows: As the bus in which the plaintiff was riding approached the bridge where the accident occurred, a heavy rainstorm was in progress.The bridge is approximately nine hundred feet in length, straight, and forty-four feet wide between curbs.Double trolley tracks were located in the center of the highway.The surface was of wooden blocks which were slippery and dangerous for vehicular traffic when wet.The bridge was well lighted by twenty large are lights.The defendant's bus started a trip from Worcester to Boston about 10 o'clock.The operator was familiar with the bridge and its surface and knew that it was wet and slippery.After passing an intersection before reaching the bridge, he increased speed and, as a result, while on the bridge lessened the distance between the bus and a Plymouth automobile which was traveling in front of him in the same direction.A Chevrolet car, disabled because of some mechanical defect which made operation impossible, was parked near the center of the bridge close to and parallel with the south curb, facing easterly and without lights.It had been in this position four or five minutes before the accident.The driver of the defendant's bus did not see this parked car until after the collision.The Plymouth collided with it and came to a stop about ten feet to the rear of it, its left wheel extending a foot or two beyond the left rear wheel of the Chevrolet car.There was sufficient room between the center line of the highway and the left rear wheel of the Plymouth for the defendant's bus to pass.The bus continued on until about ten feet away from the Plymouth, when the operator swung to his left to avoid and pass it and in doing so crossed to the left of the center of the highway and came in contact with the vehicle in which the plaintiff was riding, which was to its right of the center of the highway.

The defendant offered evidence that its bus was traveling to the right of the center of the roadway, at not more than thirty miles per hour, and maintained a distance of thirty feet behind the Plymouth.The Plymouth crashed into the left rear of the parked Chevrolet, the rear end skidded backward and sidewise to the left and toward the center of the road, and the front end veered to the right, and the car finally came to a stop some ten feet behind the Chevrolet; its rear end extending out into the roadway a distance of fourteen feet.The driver of the Plymouth gave no signal or warning that it was slowing down or stopping prior to its collision with the Chevrolet, and the operator of the defendant's bus had no warning or indication that it was not being operated in a careful manner, or that it would not proceed in the regular course of travel, until it began to bound back into the path of the bus.The defendant's operator applied his brakes and swung to the left, thereby avoiding a collision with the Plymouth which otherwise would have resulted, and the bus traveled no more than twenty feet from the time it turned out to its left until it came into collision with the Aselton bus at a point less than five feet to the north of the center of the roadway.Parking on the bridge was forbidden, signs to this effect being posted all along the bridge on both sides.

It thus appears from the finding that the car in which the plaintiff was riding was traveling upon its right of, although near to, the center of the street, that the defendant's bus encroached a few feet to its left of the center line, and this resulted in the collision between the two cars.It is evident, also, that the change of direction which preceded and led to this encroachment was precipitated by the sudden stopping of the Plymouth car, whereupon, as a means of avoiding collision with it, the defendant's operator swerved the bus to the left to pass the standing cars.In making this detour the swing taken was so wide as to carry the bus beyond the center line a distance comparatively short, but sufficient to occasion the collision.In this situation, a vital consideration in the determination as to the defendant's liability was whether its drive was or was not negligent in so doing.

A Massachusetts statute provides that: When persons traveling with vehicles meet on a way, each shall seasonably drive his vehicle to the right of the middle of the traveled part of such way, so that the vehicles may pass without interference."General Laws (Ter. Ed.) 89, § 1.While the rule obtaining in connecticut is...