Scott v. Lieberman

• Decision Date: 25 October 1933
• Citation: 187 N.E. 629,284 Mass. 325
• Parties: SCOTT v. LIEBERMAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

284 Mass. 325

187 N.E. 629

SCOTT

v.LIEBERMAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Oct. 25, 1933.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Middlesex County; Pinanski, Judge.

Action of tort by Hazel M. Scott against Fred E. Lieberman. A judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $350 on the report of an auditor, and the defendant brings exceptions and claims an appeal.

Exceptions overruled, and the appeal dismissed.

Francis C. Zacharer and James D. O'Hearn, both of Lowell, for plaintiff.

Edward M. Dangel, Leon Aronson, and Melvin J. Dangel, all of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, Chief Justice.

This is an action of tort to recover compensation for personal injuries sustained in a collision between automobiles. The case was referred to an auditor under an agreement that his findings of fact should be final. Motion that judgment be entered for the plaintiff in accordance with the auditor's report was allowed.

The facts found by the auditor so far as material to the questions of law argued are these: At about eight o'clock in the evening of September 30, 1930, the husband of the plaintiff, operating an automobile on a street in Lowell, stopped about ten or fifteen feet from an intersecting street to let traffic pass on that street. The plaintiff was sitting on the seat beside her husband. As he stopped he put his hand out of the window, and then shifted his gears into neutral. He then placed his gears into first speed and his foot on the foot brake. At that moment an automobile owned and operated by the defendant, who was then looking in another direction, crashed into the rear of Mr. Scott's automobile while it was stationary, moving it forward four to five feet, and throwing the plaintiff on the floor thereof, under the dash board, with the upper part of the back seat bending at its axis and striking her on the back. The front bumper of the defendant's automobile became hooked with the rear bumper of Mr. Scott's automobile. The collision was caused by the negligence of the defendant. The plaintiff was in the exercise of due care.

If it be assumed that the report of the auditor is open to the construction that it sets out all the facts upon which the finding of negligence was based, those reported facts support that conclusion. Operation of an automobile on a public street by a driver ‘looking in another direction,’ so that it ‘crashed into’ another automobile rightly stationary under the customary warning in front of it with the violence here disclosed, is adequate evidence of...