Morrison v. Medaglia

• Decision Date: 12 June 1934
• Parties: MORRISON v. MEDAGLIA (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

287 Mass. 46

191 N.E. 133

MORRISON

v.MEDAGLIA (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

June 12, 1934.

Appeal from District Court of Northern Essex; Cavan, Judge.

Actions of tort by Alfred C. Morrison and Alfred C. Morrison, administrator of the estate of Lida L. Morrison, against John Medaglia. From an order of the appellate division dismissing a report after a finding for plaintiffs, defendant appeals.

Order dismissing report affirmed.

E. L. Howie and R. H. Sprout, both of Salem, for appellant.

W. J. McDonald, of Haverhill, for appellee.

LUMMUS, Justice.

Shortly after one o'clock in the morning of August 14, 1932, the plaintiff Alfred C. Morrison, having his wife Lida L. Morrison and other persons as passengers, was operating an automobile going southerly on Osgood street in North Andover, a macadam roadway twenty-four feet wide. The defendant, operating an automobile going northerly, at a rate of speed of fifty miles an hour, negligently drove to the left or west side of the road, struck the Morrison automobile, and turned it around, with the result that it crossed to the east side of the road, and overturned, so that it was lying on its right side with the top or roof of the automobile towards the east. Lida L. Morrison was on the rear seat on the right side, which was nearer the ground. Very shortly afterwards, one Pillsbury, operating another automobile going northerly, came to the scene, saw the overturned automobile and some people in the road, negligently failed to stop in season, and ran into the overturned automobile, with the result that his front right wheel came through the top of the overturned automobile and penned Mrs. Morrison between the wheel and the back of the Morrison automobile, so that the Pillsbury automobile had to be backed away before she could be taken out. The evidence did not show whether the top of the Morrison automobile was broken open when it overturned, or whether the Pillsbury automobile broke it open. Neither did the evidence show whether Mrs. Morrison was injured when her automobile was overturned, or when the Pillsbury automobile ran into it, or at both times. When she was removed from the wreckage, she had been so seriously injured that she died within two hours. As to Alfred C. Morrison, he remembered nothing after his automobile overturned until he extricated himself after the second collision.

Alfred C. Morrison, as administrator of the estate of Lida L. Morrison, brought separate actions against Pillsbury and the defendant Medaglia, under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 229, § 5, to recover for her death. As an individual, he brought separate actions against the same persons to recover for his own personal injuries. The cases were tried together in the district court, and resulted in findings against Pillsbury in the sum of $500 and against Medaglia in the sum of $4,000 in the death cases. For his own personal injuries, Alfred C. Morrison was awarded $311 against the defendant Medaglia. In his action for his own personal injuries against Pillsbury, the judge found for the defendant Pillsbury, perhaps on the ground that it was not shown that the plaintiff's injury was not complete before Pillsbury arrived on the scene. The defendant Medaglia in the cases against him presented certain requests for rulings, which were refused, and took both cases to the appellate division, which dismissed the reports. Medaglia's appeals bring both cases here.

The defendant Medaglia urges that no causal relation could be found to exist between his negligence and the subsequent collision of the Pillsbury automobile with the overturned Morrison automobile, in view of the finding that Pillsbury was negligent. It was pointed out in Leahy v. Standard Oil Co. of New York, 224 Mass. 352, 112 N. E. 950, that the intervening negligence of a third person, which contributes to an injury, does not necessarily break the causal connection between the conduct of an earlier wrongdoer, and the injury. A causal connection may nevertheless be found, either on the theory of Burke v. Hodge, 217 Mass. 182, 104 N. E. 450, that the negligence of the earlier wrongdoer remained a dangerous force until the negligence of the later wrongdoer concurred and combined with it to cause injury, or on the theory of Lane v. Atlantic Works, 111 Mass. 136, restated in Horan v. Inhabitants of Watertown, 217 Mass. 185, 104 N. E. 464, that the earlier wrongdoer ought to have foreseen that his negligence would be followed by negligence of another resulting in injury, and consequently that in law the act of that other is the act of the original wrongdoer because it is the natural and probable consequence of his wrongdoing. The latter theory was applied in Lane v. Atlantic Works, 111 Mass. 136, where the defendant was negligent in placing iron loosely on a truck which it wrongfully left standing in a street, and a passing boy negligently caused the iron to roll off; in Turner v. Page, 186 Mass. 600, 602, 72 N. E. 329, and Mullen v. Zides, 216 Mass. 202, 103 N. E. 635, where the defendant was negligent in causing or permitting a horse to run away, and a third person negligently changed the course of the horse so that he ran into the plaintiff; in Gudziewski v. Stemplesky, 263 Mass. 103, 160 N. E. 334,Gordon v. Bedard, 265 Mass. 408, 164 N. E. 374, and Pudlo v. Dubiel, 273 Mass. 172, 173 N. E. 536 (see, also, Guinan v. Famous Players-Lasky Corp., 267 Mass. 501, 517, 518, 167 N. E. 235), where the defendant negligently entrusted a dangerous thing to an improper person not his servant, and the negligent act of the latter injured the plaintiff; in Gray v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 215 Mass. 143, 147, 148, 102 N. E. 71 (see, also, Vatalaro v. Thomas, 262 Mass. 383, 386, 387, 160 N. E. 269,Atamian's Case, 265 Mass. 12, 15, 163 N. E. 194, and Jordan v. Orcutt, 279 Mass. 413, 181 N. E. 661), where the defendant negligently injured the plaintiff, and a physician negligently...