Hayes Freight Lines v. Oestricher

• Decision Date: 22 May 1946
• Docket Number: 17417.
• Citation: 66 N.E.2d 612,117 Ind.App. 143
• Parties: HAYES FREIGHT LINES, Inc., et al. v. OESTRICHER.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

66 N.E.2d 612

117 Ind.App. 143

HAYES FREIGHT LINES, Inc., et al. v. OESTRICHER.

No. 17417.

Appellate Court of Indiana, in Banc.

May 22, 1946

Carl M. Gray and Edward L. Waddle, both of Petersburg, for appellants.

Sanford Trippet, of Princeton, for appellee.

DRAPER Judge.

The appellee brought this action against the appellants to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by her as the result of an automobile accident.

From an adverse verdict and judgment for $2300 the appellants prosecute this appeal. They assign as error the overruling of their motion for new trial which asserts error, among other things, in the giving and refusal of certain instructions.

The appellee's complaint alleges that she was riding in an automobile being driven southward on a certain public highway at 8:40 P.M. on the day of the accident, and that the appellants were then and there operating three trucks and trailers northward along the same highway. It is alleged that the trucks and trailers were bing negligently operated in that they were being driven with bright and blinding lights on a part of the highway reserved for southbound traffic; at such high speed that the trailers swayed from side to side and over on the part of the road reserved for southbound traffic, so as to obstruct the use of the same for southbound vehicles; and that they were following each other too closely, to-wit: less than 150 feet apart. It is then averred that the collision producting appellee's injuries occurred as a result of each of the enumerated acts of negligence.

Among the instructions given by the court was the following:

'The plaintiff charges in her complaint herein that at the time and place of her injuries complained of said defendants were operating three certain trucks and trailers northward along highway 57 and that at the same time the plaintiff was riding in an automobile being operated southward along said Highway 57; that said defendants carelessly and negligently operated said trucks, on meeting the automobile in which plaintiff was riding, as aforesaid at such a high rate of speed that the trailers thereof swayed from side to side and over onto the half of the highway provided for southbound traffic so as to obstruct the use of same by southbound vehicles and that as a result thereof the automobile in which plaintiff was riding came into contact and collision with one or more of said trucks or trailers thereby inflicting the injuries upon plaintiff of which she complains.

'The court further instructs you that if you find from a fair preponderance of the evidence that said defendants, or any of them,...