Hutchins v. Mosher

Decision Date17 July 1951
Citation82 A.2d 411,146 Me. 409
PartiesHUTCHINS v. MOSHER (two cases).
CourtMaine Supreme Court

Varney, Levy & Winton, Portsmouth, N. H., for Eleanor B. hutchins.

Robinson, Richardson & Leddy, Portland, for Franklin J. Mosher.

Before MURCHIE, C. J., and THAXTER, FELLOWS, MERRILL, NULTY, and WILLIAMSON, JJ.

THAXTER, Justice.

These actions resulted from an automobile collision and were tried together, the first brought by Eleanor R. Hutchins to recover for personal injuries, the second by her husband, Lawrence F. Hutchins, to recover for damages to his automobile which she was driving. The defendant, an automobile dealer residing in Oakland, Maine, was driving from Boston home easterly via Portland on November 29, 1949. His wife was with him. They were on the Main-New Hampshire Interstate Bridge leaving Portsmouth and approaching Kittery; and were proceeding about thirty-five miles an hour easterly in the right-hand lane of a three lane road.

The plaintiff was going to Portsmouth to pick up their child who was about to be dismissed from school. She was proceeding on Bridge Street which intersects the approach to the bridge in Kittery, and in accordance with rules of the road she stopped before she entered the highway. But she stopped on the left-hand side of Bridge Street at a point where her view was obstructed of cars coming east. It was obstructed for two reasons. She placed herself much closer to such cars than she would have if she had observed the rule of the road and had kept to the right of the center line of Bridge Street before she made her left turn. R.S.1944, Ch. 19, Sec. 107. Not only did she place herself much nearer to cars approaching on her left but she placed herself in a pocket where also the bridge rail obscured from her view cars approaching from her left. Bridge Street, where she was, was at least two or three feet lower than the highway at the intersection. From her stopped position she went into low gear and drove out on the main highway directly in front of the Mosher car, so close that the defendant Mosher did not have time to get his foot on his brake before the collision. She came onto the highway bridge approach, turned sharply to her left on the main highway, and the cars collided nearly head on while she was travelling on the left side of the road.

Mosher saw her car waiting at the left side of the intersection before she entered the main highway. It was raining but his view was not obscured, and...

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3 cases
  • Goldstein v. Sklar
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • January 18, 1966
    ...to anticipate defendant's negligence. He had a right to consider that the defendant would observe the law as to stopping.' Hutchins v. Mosher, 146 Me. 409, 82 A.2d 411; Davis v. Simpson, 138 Me. 137, at 145, 23 A.2d The plaintiff's right to assume that Sklar would observe the law and refrai......
  • Bennett v. Lufkin
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • January 17, 1952
    ...Kotimaki, 125 Me. 72, at page 74, 130 A 871, at page 873, citing 13 R.C.L. 287. Recent statements of the rule are found in Hutchins v. Mosher, 146 Me. 409, 82 A.2d 411, and Bernstein v. Carmichael, 146 Me. 446, 82 A.2d Field v. Webber, 132 Me. 236, 169 A. 732, and Rawson v. Stiman, 133 Me. ......
  • Crockett v. Staples
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • June 11, 1952
    ...that the defendant would observe the law as to stopping'. Davis v. Simpson, 138 Me. 137, at page 145, 23 A.2d 320, 324; Hutchins v. Mosher, 146 Me. 409, 82 A.2d 411; 2 Blashfield Cyc. of Automobile Law & Practice, Sec. 1028-1032 (Perm. Let us say that in the exercise of due care the plainti......

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