Hutchins v. Emery

• Decision Date: 06 March 1936
• Citation: 183 A. 754
• Parties: HUTCHINS v. EMERY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

183 A. 754

HUTCHINS

v. EMERY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 6, 1936.

On Motion from Superior Court, York County.

Action by Ethel M. Hutchins against Linwood J. Emery. On general motion for new trial.

Motion overruled.

Argued before DUNN, C. J., and STURGIS, BARNES, THAXTER, HUDSON, and MANSER, JJ.

Willard & Willard, of Sanford, for plaintiff.

Waterhouse, Titcomb & Siddall, of Sanford, for defendant.

DUNN, Chief Justice.

On November 13, 1933, at quarter past 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the plaintiff, who had made a social call, was walking homeward, in Sanford. She was proceeding northerly, on a sidewalk on the east side of School street in that town. She walked to, and across, an intersecting street known as Mousam street, and was continuing her way on the School street sidewalk, when an automobile operated by one Claude O. Prime struck her; the resultant injuries were grievous.

Seeking damages, plaintiff brought this action, wherein Linwood J. Emery, the driver of a second automobile, is sole defendant. Allegation is that Emery's acts, alone or as a contributory source, in forcing Prime's automobile onto the sidewalk, to plaintiff's harm, was not willful and intentional, but negligent, in the actionable sense of that word.

The jury determined liability, and assessed damages at $3,125. The defendant presents the case on general motion for a new trial. No other question than that of liability upon the theory of proximate cause is pressed.

The issue, therefore, is whether the case is one in which, on the single ground mentioned, the motion can be sustained.

The day was misty; witnesses testify that it was dark at the time of the accident; automobile headlights were being used. The tarvia surface of the streets was wet and slippery.

The course of the Prime vehicle (that inflicting, damage) was north, in the east lane of School street, the same direction plaintiff was traveling; the path of defendant's car, south in the west lane of the same street. The approaching motor vehicles were driven without incident, on their respective sides of the road, to where Mousam street opens laterally to the eastward.

The facts from here on are in dispute.

The declaration in the writ, to recur to it, consists of two counts. One alleges negligence of the defendant, which in and of itself was the only cause of hurt; the other that defendant's negligence and negligence of the other driver both operated at the same time, and both contributed to produce the injury.

Plaintiff claims to recover because of the negligence of defendant, in turning his machine to the left, or wrong, side of the road, in front of the Prime car, then on its right side of the road, half over Mousam street, and ongoing. Being swerved, as its driver testifies, to avert colliding head on, the Prime car ran onto the sidewalk, there striking the pedestrian.

There was evidence from which it was fairly to be inferred that, to hasten his arrival in Mousam street, where he lived, defendant, in violation of the law of the road, veered his car diagonally to the left, athwart passage of the Prime car.

Contention of plaintiff is that defendant, coming down School street, and intending to turn into Mousam street, did not, as in obedience to statute provision he ought to have done (Rev.St. c. 29, § 74), pass beyond the meeting point of the median lines of the intersecting streets, but "cut the corner," thereby creating an emergency.

It is not necessary that a defendant's negligence be the sole cause of injury; it is enough if such negligence is a contributing cause. Rohrman v. Denzinger, 208 Ky. 832, 272 S.W. 16; Meech v. Sewall, 232 Mass....