Stewart v. Kansas City Public Service Co.

• Decision Date: 02 May 1932
• Docket Number: No. 17420.,17420.
• Citation: 49 S.W.2d 1061
• Parties: STEWART v. KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SERVICE CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

49 S.W.2d 1061

STEWART v. KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SERVICE CO.

No. 17420.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 2, 1932.

Rehearing Denied May 23, 1932.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Brown Harris, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Suit by Rubin F. Stewart against the Kansas City Public Service Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Charles L. Carr and Hogsett, Smith, Murray & Trippe, all of Kansas City, for appellant.

Allan R. Browne and Benjamin W. Grover, both of Kansas City, for respondent.

TRIMBLE, P. J.

On July 5, 1929, about 7:15 or 7:30 p. m., plaintiff was riding eastward along Linwood boulevard in Kansas City, in his automobile driven by one Robinson, a relative by marriage, and approaching the intersection of said boulevard with Olive street, which ran north and south. Linwood was about 50 feet wide, and Olive is 28 or 30 feet in width. The automobile was a Chevrolet open touring car of two seats, capable of holding comfortably five persons. The driver was at the steering wheel on the left, and plaintiff was on his right in the front seat. The automobile was going 10 or 12 miles per hour, and, as it approached the intersection at Olive, it slowed down to 4 or 5 miles per hour, not only preparatory to making a right turn to the south on Olive, but also because of certain people at the corner who were evidently preparing to go east across Olive at the south side of the intersection. They stepped off the west curb of Olive, but immediately stepped back on it to permit the automobile to pass. It had slowed down just a short time before the turn, and the driver put out his left arm obliquely above the horizontal as a signal he was going to make a right turn. Shortly before the car slowed down, but while it was still going east at 10 or 12 miles per hour "and quite a ways before you got down to Olive," plaintiff looked back and saw defendant's bus, a large transportation affair with eight or ten people in it, also going east on Linwood, and about 40 or 50 feet behind the automobile, at a speed of 12 or 15 miles per hour. He may have been halfway or over between Park and Olive (Park being the first street west of Olive) when he last looked back and saw the bus. At this time his automobile was about 4 or 5 or 6 feet from the south curb of Linwood. Shortly after the automobile slowed down to 4 or 5 miles and was turning onto Olive the bus struck the automobile in the rear at the right rear fender, tore it off, and mashed in the right rear door, throwing it, with plaintiff still in the automobile, a distance of 12 feet over on Olive, turning the automobile around, until it struck a tree and was, by the impact, thrown back into the street. The right side of the bus must have been 5 or 6 feet from the south curb line of Linwood to have struck the automobile where it did. Immediately after the collision the bus went on up Olive to the south until it struck an arterial stop sign and tore it down. The stop sign was a "good big post" standing on the east side of Olive about 10 or 12 feet south of the south line of Linwood. When the bus stopped, the front wheels were up on the east curbing of Olive street where the arterial sign had been knocked down. Plaintiff's automobile had been turned "clear round" and forced southeast across Olive street. Plaintiff said "it kind of stunned us for a moment, and we got out of the car and the bus driver got off and he says, `I am sorry, pardner, that I hit you; but,' he says, `I didn't see you.'" Plaintiff said this occurred "a couple of minutes maybe, as near as I could tell" after the accident, and before anything else was said or done. Plaintiff says the driver had some cards in his hand and wanted plaintiff to sign them, but he refused.

The last time plaintiff saw the bus coming behind him, the front of the car in which plaintiff was riding had not quite reached the west curb of Olive street, being about 6 feet from it. At that time the bus was turning aside toward the south curb of Linwood where there was a "bus stop" sign indicating a stopping place for passengers. A man was standing up by the driver of the bus in a position as if to get off at said sign or stop and the bus was slowing up as it pulled in toward the stop sign. It seems, however, that the bus did not stop but kept on going, and gave no warning that it was coming on. It was in evidence that, in the situation and under the circumstances shown, the bus driver could have stopped with safety, at the speed he was going, in 12 or 15 feet. When the automobile, as its driver began signaling its intended turn to the right, slowed down to make the turn, the bus was 40 feet back of the car and going 12 or 15 miles per hour.

Plaintiff was thrown around in the car but not out of it. When he got out he felt a little dazed at first. The only thing that hurt at the time was his head. At and before the accident, plaintiff was in the paint and paper hanging business and "I had a real good business," but after the accident, though he tried, he could not work at it; he could not stand it climbing ladders; it hurt him all through his back and groin on the right side. He did not stay in Kansas City after he was hurt more than a month, but went to a truck farm near Rocheport, but could not and did not do any heavy work there. He did what he could in the way of delivering vegetables in a car to Columbia to which place he finally moved, and there finally got a job soliciting and picking up laundry over the town. In his paper hanging he made all the way from $5 to $10 and $12 a day, or on an average of $150 to $200 per month, but in picking up laundry he is working on a percentage and makes very little. The hurt in his back and right groin is where he has the most trouble, the right groin hurting him severely and getting worse with a burning sensation in his groin and his back feeling "like it was going to come in two." His kidneys bothered him some, and later it was painful to urinate. He did not discover it at first, but he found he had a hernia shortly after the accident. He has been bothered with headaches since the collision, but never had them before, and was not bothered with loss of sleep as he has been since. Sometimes now he "will go for a couple of weeks...