Maria v. Trotto

• Decision Date: 03 July 1937
• Citation: 297 Mass. 442,9 N.E.2d 540
• Parties: SANTA MARIA v. TROTTO (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

297 Mass. 442

9 N.E.2d 540

SANTA MARIA

v.TROTTO (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

July 3, 1937.

Two actions of tort by Angelo Santa Maria against John Trotto and Frank O. Trotto. From an order of the Appellate Division ordering judgment for plaintiff set aside, following a finding for plaintiff in the sum of $4,000 in each action, and judgment entered for defendants on report by the trial judge, the plaintiff appeals.

Order of the Appellate Division affirmed.Appeal from Appellate Division, Central District Court of Worcester, Western District; Wall, Judge.

H. Zarrow, of Worcester, for appellant.

J. J. MacCarthy, of Worcester, for appellees.

DONAHUE, Justice.

The defendant in the first case owned and operated a sand and gravel pit where sand and gravel were brought by conveyors to a loading platform elevated five or six feet above the ground and thence loaded upon automobile trucks backed into stalls underneath the platform. At the time of the occurrence of the events here involved the platform was being enlarged. A concrete wall was being built and there was a concrete mixer in operation on the platform.

An automobile truck owned by the defendant in the first case and operated by his son and employee, the defendant in the second case, had been driven from the premises out upon the highway and was being slowly backed so as to enter one of the stalls. While it was partially on the highway and partially on the premises of the defendant in the first case, one of its rear wheels went upon a stone and then slipped off. The rear end of the truck came in contact with the wooden supports of the platform and caused it to collapse. The plaintiff, who was on the platform, was injured. Whenever the word ‘defendant’ hereinafter appears, it shall be taken to mean the defendant in the first case.

The cases were tried in a district court. The trial judge found: ‘Upon all the evidence * * * that the defendant's truck was improperly registered and so a trespasser on the highway * * * that at least a part of the defendant's truck was within the highway at the time the rear of the truck collided with the loading platform upon which the plaintiff was * * * that the plaintiff had gone to the defendant's premises in search of employment; that he was informed by the defendant's foreman that there was no work for him; that thereafter the plaintiff climbed up on the * * * platform for the purpose of talking with his son; that the plaintiff went onto the platform at his own volition and not at the request of the defendant's foreman; that the plaintiff was injured while standing on the * * * platform by reason of the defendant's truck backing into said platform and knocking the underpinning from said platform; that the speed of the truck that was backing up was approximately two or three miles per hour; that the truck while being backed up to the platform backed up on a boulder in the ground and that the rear wheel of the truck slid off the said boulder and collided with the platform; that the defendant knew or ought to have known of the presence of this stone or boulder and of its location in reference to the platform * * * that the plaintiff was at the time a licensee upon the defendant's premises * * * that the operator of the defendant's truck was negligent * * * that the injuries to the plaintiff * * * [were] was caused directly by the operation of the defendant's improperly registered truck, and that the * * * truck at the time of the injuries was partly on the highway. (See Evans v. Rice, 238 Mass. 318, at pages 320 and 321,130 N.E. 672.)’

The judge granted certain requests for rulings filed by the defendants to the effect that the plaintiff at the time of the accident was a licensee on the premises of the defendant, that the duty owed to the plaintiff as a licensee was to refrain from wanton, willfull or reckless misconduct and that there was no evidence of such conduct on the part of either defendant. He refused to give certain requests of the defendants to the effect that the defendant's truck was properly registered under a trade name, that the question whether the defendant's truck was properly registered or not was immaterial as the accident occurred on the defendant's premises, not upon a public way, that there was no negligence in the operation of the truck and that the plaintiff could not recover without proof that the defendants were guilty of wanton, willful or reckless misconduct.

At the request of the defendants the judge reported his rulings and refusals to rule as requested, with a summary of the material evidence, to the Appellate Division. The Appellate Division found prejudicial error, ordered the ‘judgments' for the plaintiff set aside and judgment entered for the defendants. From that order the plaintiff has appealed.

At the trial the defendants objected to the admission of the evidence on which the judge based his finding that the defendant's truck was improperly registered and duly claimed a report. The finding was warranted by the evidence but the defendants contended that since the declaration alleges merely negligence and not the creation of a nuisance on the highway the evidence in question was wrongly admitted. Ducharme v. Coe Motors, Inc., 275 Mass. 69, 72, 175 N.E. 168. The evidence would have been admissible on the issue of negligence, Capano v. Melchionno (Mass.) 7 N.E.(2d) 593,Balian v. Ogassin, 277 Mass. 525, 530, 179 N.E. 232, 78 A.L.R. 1021, and cases cited, if the plaintiff at the time of his injury had been a traveler on the highway. The same matter is involved in the defendant's request for a ruling, denied by the trial judge: ‘The question of whether the defendant's truck was properly registered or not is immaterial in this case as the accident occurred upon the defendant's premises, not upon any public way.’

The purposes of the statute requiring the registration of automobiles have frequently been stated. The statements as to those purposes in our decisions uniformly include the purpose of protecting persons on the highway and do not include the protection of persons not on the highway. It was said in Dudley v. Northampton Street Railway Co., 202 Mass. 443, 448, 89 N.E. 25, 28,23 L.R.A.(N.S.) 561, that the purpose of the registration statute was ‘to afford protection and adequate means of redress to all persons upon the ways' and that the Legislature intended to pur unregistered...