McCormick & Co. v. Cauley

• Decision Date: 22 June 1936
• Docket Number: 16326
• Parties: McCORMICK & CO. v. CAULEY
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

168 So. 783

McCORMICK & CO. v. CAULEY

No. 16326

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Orleans.

June 22, 1936

Porteous, Johnson & Humphrey, of New Orleans, for appellant.

Habans & Coleman and A. I. Kleinfeldt, all of New Orleans, for appellee.

OPINION

JANVIER Judge.

This suit results from an automobile collision which occurred at the corner of Broadway and Willow streets in New Orleans at about 8 o'clock in the morning on August 27, 1934. The vehicles involved were a truck owned by plaintiff corporation, and driven at the time by an employee acting within the scope of his employment, and a sedan owned by defendant and driven by his minor son. Defendant was seated in the rear of his car. The truck was on its way up Willow street, and the sedan was proceeding out Broadway on the lower side. The sedan struck the left side of the truck and almost turned it over. Plaintiff corporation alleges that the cost of repairing the truck was $ 165, and, charging that the accident resulted solely from the negligence of defendant's son, seeks judgment for that amount.

Defendant denies that there was any negligence on the part of his son and, alleging that the sole cause of the collision was carelessness on the part of the driver of the plaintiff's truck, prays for judgment in reconvention for $ 132.50, which is set forth as the cost of making the necessary repairs to the sedan.

Each party claims that the operator of the other vehicle was negligent in the matter of speed and in failing to maintain a proper lookout for vehicles on the intersecting street, and each charges that the other vehicle violated the right of way provisions of the applicable traffic ordinance of the city, to wit, 13702, C. C.S.

In the First city court of New Orleans there was judgment dismissing both the main demand and the claim in reconvention. Plaintiff has appealed, and defendant, plaintiff in reconvention, has answered the appeal.

There was a semaphore traffic signal on the corner, and it is conceded now by defendant that, as the truck on Willow Street was approaching the corner, the signal light facing it changed from amber to green as the truck reached a point about 100 or 150 feet from the light, and that the signal device continued to display the green light to the driver of the truck until the accident occurred, so that the truck, whatever the driver of defendant's car might have thought to the contrary, was entitled to the right of way. See paragraph a, section 3, article III, Ordinance No. 13702, C. C.S.

It is also established, however, that the signal device was at the time defective, in that the electric light bulb which should have shown through the red glass on that side, from which the sedan approached on Willow street, had burned out, so that, as the sedan approached, no light could be seen by its driver. It is contended on behalf of defendant that his car was on a boulevard or through street, and that, since there was no light in operation which would have had the effect of depriving his vehicle of the right of way, his son was justified in assuming that all vehicles entering or crossing that through street or boulevard would come to a stop and would yield the right of way to his car.

Our attention is not directed to any portion of the ordinance which expressly names Broadway as a favored street nor to any portion which recognizes the right of way of all boulevards or through streets. We assume that defendant relies upon paragraph 2, section 8, article VI, of the Ordinance. But that paragraph does not give to vehicles on Broadway any preferential rights over vehicles on...