De Maras v. Connecticut Co.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1929
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DE MARAS v. CONNECTICUT CO.

145 A. 30

109 Conn. 651

DE MARAS v. CONNECTICUT CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 2, 1929

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Isaac Wolfe, Judge.

Action by Peter P. De Maras, administrator, against the Connecticut Company to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's intestate, alleged to have been caused by defendant's negligence. From judgment entered on a directed verdict for defendant, plaintiff appeals. No error.

Sixteen year old bicyclist running into street car held guilty of contributory negligence, barring recovery for death.

Charles A. Harrison, of Wallingford, for appellant.

William B. Gumbart and Charles A. Watrous, both of New Haven for appellee.

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

MALTBIE, J.

The following are the facts as they appear in the evidence offered by the plaintiff: His decedent was riding a bicycle either in an easterly direction along the north sidewalk of Elm street in West Haven, or out of a driveway leading from the street to an apartment house standing about 33 feet to the north of the inner edge of the sidewalk. At any rate, from the point where the driveway crosses the sidewalk he rode down the driveway into the street and thence forward almost in a straight line, intending to cross the tracks of the defendant to the other side of the street. He ran into the side of a car of the defendant, striking it near the front, and receiving the injury from which he later died. The car, which was proceeding in a westerly direction, had stopped to let off a passenger at the corner of Third avenue which was some 240 feet easterly from the point of the accident, and then started up and was proceeding up to the time of the accident at a not unusual speed. The motorman saw the boy when he was about 50 or 75 feet away, but did not sound his gong, nor did he put on his brakes until the moment of the collision or immediately thereafter.

In a statement made before he died, the decedent said he saw the car when it was at Third avenue. Taking as the speed of the car the highest mentioned by any witness, 20 miles an hour and assuming that it maintained that speed all the way, it would have taken it about eight seconds to have run from the corner of Third avenue to the point of the accident; the decedent was riding the bicycle at a " pretty good speed," one witness placing it at from 4 to 7 miles an hour; it was 24 feet from the outer edge of the sidewalk to the nearest trolley rail; it is thus manifest that the boy must have seen the car at the corner a considerable distance before arriving at the point where he rode from the sidewalk down the driveway to the street. After he reached that point, he was observed to be...