Lynch v. Springfield Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 01 April 1936
• Citation: 200 N.E. 914,294 Mass. 170
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: LYNCH v. SPRINGFIELD SAFE DEPOSIT & TRUST CO. (two cases).

294 Mass. 170

200 N.E. 914

LYNCH

v.SPRINGFIELD SAFE DEPOSIT & TRUST CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

April 1, 1936.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Hampden County; Burns, Judge.

Actions of tort by Florence Lynch and Elizabeth Lynch against the Springfield Safe Deposit & Trust Company, administrator with will annexed. Verdicts for plaintiffs in the sum of $500 and $9,500, respectively, and defendant brings exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

C. F. Ely, of Westfield, for plaintiffs.

J. M. Carroll and I. R. Shaw, both of Springfield, for defendant.

QUA, Justice.

The plaintiffs, while riding as guests of one Gimbel, the defendant's intestate, in an automobile driven by him, were injured by a collision with a large truck which was proceeding in the same direction on the highway. The only question is whether there was any evidence of gross negligence on the part of Gimbel.

There was evidence of the following tenor: At about 10:30 p. m. Gimbel invited the two plaintiffs and another girl to ride from Springfield to their home in Westfield. When they reached Tubbs Hill, so called, in West Springfield, going in a westerly direction, the Gimbel automobile ran into the rear of the truck, killing Gimbel and injuring the plaintiffs. The road was a two-lane cement road, straight and dry. The weather was clear. There was no eastbound traffic. The truck was on its right hand side of the road. The back of it was lighted with six lights. The accident happened about 10:40. The headlights of the Gimbel automobile were lighted. One of the plaintiffs testified that as the automobile neared the foot of Tubbs Hill she noticed a marked increase of speed; that there was a lighted vehicle about half way up the hill; that because of the speed she looked at Gimbel and saw his head and eyes straight ahead, his hands on the wheel and the wheel moving just enough to give it direction. Looking back to the road she noticed that they were close up to the vehicle and she shouted ‘look out.’ The Gimbel automobile was then about thirty yards from the truck and going at least fifty miles an hour. The other plaintiff testified that as far as she knew Gimbel was looking straight ahead; that she saw the truck when they were about twenty-five yards away; and that Gimbel's speed was at least thirty-five or forty miles an hour. The third passenger testified that Gimbel stepped on the gas as they started up the bill and that Gimbel was looking straight ahead.

There was evidence that between 5:15 and 7 p. m. Gimbel had several drinks of whiskey and some food, and that at seven o'clock he was ‘feeling good.’ One of the plaintiffs testified that Gimbel was sober at the time of the accident. Neither of the other passengers noticed or recalled any indication of liquor about him.

We think on this evidence it was a matter of conjecture whether any liquor which Gimbel had taken early in the evening was a contributing cause of the accident at 10:40. Marcienowski v. Sanders, 252 Mass. 65, 67, 147 N.E. 275. See Bertera v. Cuneo, 273 Mass. 181, 173 N.E. 427. With this element out of the case, it seems to a majority of the court that there was not quite enough to support a...