Toye v. Richmond
| Decision Date | 26 November 1934 |
| Docket Number | 15029 |
| Citation | 157 So. 556 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
| Parties | TOYE v. RICHMOND |
Rehearing denied January 7, 1935.
St Clair Adams and St. Clair Adams, Jr., both of New Orleans for appellant.
Stanley McDermott and John C. Moulin, both of New Orleans, for appellee.
This suit results from a collision between two automobiles in the intersection of General Pershing and Baronne streets. Miss Patricia Toye, plaintiff, was driving her Chevrolet sedan out General Pershing street in the direction of the Mississippi river and Lawrence Richmond, the defendant, was driving his Ford car up Baronne street in the direction of Carrollton avenue. There were no passengers in either car and, with the exception of the drivers, only one witness to the accident, James L. Champagne, who testified on behalf of plaintiff.
The negligence of Richmond is conceded by his counsel in argument at the bar and in his brief filed in this court. The only question we are called upon to decide is whether Miss Toye was contributorily negligent. The court a qua, in rendering judgment in plaintiff's favor for $ 1,343.76 for personal injuries which she sustained and the expense to which she was put as a result of the accident, decided this question in the negative.
Miss Toye is said to have been negligent in that she entered the intersection at an excessive and illegal rate of speed directly in the path of defendant's automobile.
The accident happened at about 4:30 p. m. during the afternoon of November 22, 1930, and, according to the testimony of the plaintiff, she approached the corner of General Pershing and Baronne streets at a speed of about 25 miles an hour and that, as she reached a point approximately 15 feet from Baronne street, she reduced her speed to 10 or 15 miles an hour, looked down Baronne street in the direction of the Ford car and saw it traveling very rapidly about 150 feet distant from the intersection. Believing that she could cross in safety, she entered the intersection and had almost completed the crossing, when the Ford crashed into the rear left fender of her Chevrolet with such force as to cause it to turn over in General Pershing street 10 or 15 feet beyond the intersection.
Champagne, plaintiff's witness, gives a different account of Miss Toye's handling of her car in an important particular. He says that both cars "must have been going around 30 miles an hour; I don't think less," and at another point in his testimony that neither car "seemed to make any attempt to stop at the corner" and that Miss Toye "could not have been going at 15 or 20 miles an hour, but most likely about 30."
Plaintiff's counsel, answering the charges of contributory negligence insists that Miss Toye slowed down at the intersection, but that if she did not, she had the right of way, because she was approaching the intersection from defendant's right, and, under subsection (c) of section 7 of article 1 of Ordinance No. 7490, C. C.S., she had the right of way, and that as she had traversed the intersection when her Chevrolet was struck in the rear, she was entitled to proceed, and the defendant's car was under the obligation of permitting her to pass, and finally that the case depends upon the credibility of the testimony, and, under numerous decisions of this court and of the Supreme Court, the...
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