Simmons v. Lewis
Decision Date | 09 March 1910 |
Citation | 125 N.W. 194,146 Iowa 316 |
Parties | LEO SIMMONS, by W. H. SIMMONS, his next Friend, Appellant, v. J. R. LEWIS and WINIFRED LEWIS |
Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Iowa District Court.--HON. R. P. HOWELL, Judge.
ACTION to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have resulted to plaintiff from the negligence of defendant Winifred Lewis in operating an automobile in such a negligent manner as to frighten a team of horses causing them to break loose from a vehicle to which they were attached and to run upon plaintiff. At the conclusion of the evidence, the court on motion directed a verdict for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Dower & Murphy, for appellant.
Wade Dutcher & Davis and Stapleton & Stapleton, for appellees.
Defendants are husband and wife. On a day on which the County Fair was being held at the Fair Grounds, about one-half mile east of Marengo, and while many people were passing on foot and in vehicles along the street, leading from the town to the Fair Grounds, the defendant Winifred Lewis, running an automobile owned by her husband, proceeded along said highway from the town towards the Fair Grounds. When she came within about two city blocks in distance from the entrance to the Fair Grounds, and while proceeding on the north side of the street, she came to buggies moving in the same direction in front of her, and, after making two or three efforts to pass them without success, she crossed to the south side of the street, where she proceeded slowly near the team belonging to one Krause, which was being driven attached to a double-seated vehicle, on the north side of the street and this team becoming frightened although firmly held by the owner sprang sidewise so as to break the tongue of the vehicle, and, escaping from the owner, ran along the street to the entrance of the Fair Grounds, where the horses ran upon plaintiff causing him, a boy of about twelve years of age, severe injuries.
Giving to the evidence for the plaintiff all the force which the jurors could possibly give to it within the scope of their proper functions, it tends to show that the automobile, a single-cylinder car, running at low gear, was operated with all the care and precaution which could reasonably be required even when passing in the street where there were many people and numerous vehicles, although as a matter of fact there were immediately in front of the automobile at the time when the horses became frightened only two or three vehicles and the main procession of people in front occupying the street was about one-half a block distant; that Krause's team when the automobile approached on the...
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