Reed v. Edison Electric Illuminating Co. of Boston

• Decision Date: 29 November 1916
• Parties: REED v. EDISON ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING CO. OF BOSTON (two cases). WAITE v. SAME.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

225 Mass. 163

114 N.E. 289

REED

v.EDISON ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING CO. OF BOSTON (two cases).

WAITE

v.SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Nov. 29, 1916.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Worcester County; Wm. Hamilton, Judge.

Three actions, by Mary T. Reed, Edgar Reed, and Ruth A. Waite, against the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston, tried together. Verdict was directed for defendant in each case, and plaintiffs except. Exceptions sustained.

E. H. Vaughan, Edwd. T. Esty, and Jay Clark, Jr., all of Worcester, for plaintiffs.

Chas. C. Milton and Frank L. Riley, both of Worcester, for defendant.

PIERCE, J.

Disregarding all evidence, including inferences of fact unfavorable to the contention of the plaintiffs as set out in their several declarations, under the rule recognized and followed in Metayer v. Grant, 222 Mass. 254, 110 N. E. 310, and cases cited therein, the remaining testimony warranted the jury in finding that the plaintiffs while riding in an automobile on the state highway, known as Central avenue, in the town of Weston, suffered damage by reason of the collision of the automobile with an electric light pole of the defendant, lawfully standing within the limits of the highway.

[2] Upon the evidence a jury might find the surrounding conditions at the scene of the accident to have been as follows: The state highway runs westerly from the town of Weston. It includes within the limits of its location the stone walls on the north and south sides. Between the walls the surface of the way was nearly level and was usable for travellers with teams or automobiles with the exception of the space covered by a sidewalk on the north side of the location and that occupied by trees and an electric light pole on the south side, which, respectively, stood twelve or fifteen inches and four and one half feet from the face of the north side of the stone wall. The highway as located was three rods wide; on the north side the sidewalk was somewhat above the surface level of the way; then, there was a space three and one half feet wide of rough macadam; then, one of eighteen feet of smooth macadam; then, one of three and one half feet of rough macadam; then, a grass plot eight to ten feet wide extending to the south wall. On the roadbed and sides of the way there were snow and slush in spots protected by the trees, but the tracks in the center of the way were free and wheels ran upon the macadam.

The tread of the automobile was fifty-six inches. The space of smooth and rough macadam outside the wheel tracks was ten feet and two inches on each side. A pole that had been used as an electric light pole was lying on the ground between the southerly wheel track and an electric light pole. It had been removed by the defendant to give place to the standing electric light pole ten days before the collision. It was twenty-four feet in length and extended from within a few feet of the upright pole to a point ten feet southerly of the south wheel track, which point was two inches to the north of the south line of the rough macadam. At a point east of and distant from the standing electric light pole sixty to seventy feet, the car skidded to the left of the travelled macadam way; the driver turned his front wheels to the left ‘to catch the skid’; he caught it, then he turned back to the center of the way; he pulled on his steering wheel-could not get back-he had run up against the pole on the ground which held the left wheel, and the car, so guided,...