Weissman v. Hokamp

• Decision Date: 12 January 1937
• Docket Number: No. 26.,26.
• Citation: 188 A. 923
• Parties: WEISSMAN et al. v. HOKAMP.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

188 A. 923

WEISSMAN et al.

v. HOKAMP.^*

No. 26.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 12, 1937.

OPPUTT and URNER, JJ., dissenting.

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Eugene O'Dunne, Judge.

Action by May Hokamp against Meyer Weissman and another. From a judgment for the plaintiff, the defendants appeal.

Judgment reversed without a new trial.

Argued before BOND, C. J., and URNER, OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL, SHEHAN, and JOHNSON, JJ.

H. Beale Rollins and F. Gray Goudy, both of Baltimore, for appellants.

James J. Lindsay, of Baltimore, for appellee.

BOND, Chief Judge.

Appealing from a judgment for damages sustained by a pedestrian in a collision with their taxicab, the appellants present for review two rulings of the trial court. The first is the admission in evidence of a report by the taxicab driver to the Public Service Commission, contrary to the prohibition in section 372 of article 23 of the Code. This ruling the court finds insufficient to require a reversal for retrial because the statements contained in the report added nothing to the evidence unfavorable to the defendants, for they were contained also in a report to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles introduced in evidence as is permitted, for the purpose of proving an admission or a contradiction of the testimony of the driver in court (York Ice Machinery Corp. v. Sachs, 167 Md. 113, 127, 173 A. 240), and because the statements seem to this court to be the same in effect as those in the testimony. The second ruling is the refusal of prayers of the defendants for direction of a verdict in their favor because of the absence of legally sufficient evidence to prove negligence of the driver causing the accident, or because of the establishment of contributory negligence on the plaintiff's part.

The accident occurred at the crossing from south to north on the west side of the intersection of Light and Redwood streets in Baltimore City, at about 12:25 p. m. on Monday, November 19, 1934. There are street car tracks in the center of Redwood street for both east and west car traffic, the southernmost rail being about seventeen feet out from the southern sidewalk; and about four feet south of that rail, extending west from the Light street building line, and the regular crossing for pedestrians, a row of iron posts on heavy bases, provides a safety zone except during the hours of crowded traffic. During other than the crowded hours a movable white disc on top of the westernmost post, bearing the words, "Keep to the right," is turned west, toward oncoming eastbound traffic; and in the crowded hours the disc is turned the other way so as to give no direction to eastbound traffic, but on the contrary to expedite it by sending it through along the car tracks. At the time of the accident complained of it was turned thus so as to run the traffic through along the tracks. These facts appear from testimony of the plaintiff and a witness on her behalf. She herself did not notice the sign that day.

During this, her lunch hour, when the plaintiff, walking north in the middle of the sidewalk on Light street, came to the Redwood street crossing, she found that the traffic signal light for the crossing had just turned red, against northbound traffic and giving the right of way to east and west bound vehicles. There were cars parked by the sidewalk to her left, or to the west of her. She waited with other pedestrians on the sidewalk until there seemed to be a clearing of passing vehicles, when she and others started across, still with the red light against them. She testified that before stepping off the sidewalk she looked west and failed to see within the distance of a block any vehicle coming east, and thenceforth looked only to her right, that she stopped at just about the southernmost track, to the north of an imaginary extension of the line of posts and waited to see whether another vehicle coming from the east would come across, but it turned on Light street. As she stood so, she said, the defendants' taxi-cab came from the west, caught her in some way with its fender, and pushed her along about two feet; and to avoid being thrown under the wheel she stepped to the front of the cab and was thrown there. She declared at the time that it was her fault, but testified that she did so to avoid causing trouble to the driver.

Her own testimony makes it clear that when, as she said, she looked and saw no vehicle coming, the taxicab was nevertheless there, and in close proximity. To come from more than a block away while she walked out to the track it would have had to rush forward at an incredible speed. Hill v. Philadelphia R. T. Co., 271 Pa. 232, 236, 114 A. 634. And when it collided with her it was going so slowly as to push her only two feet, and to permit her to step to the front of it; and it stopped at the spot. There was no testimony that the speed of the cab was fast, none at all on the movement of the cab except that of its driver, who testified that he had just started on the change of lights behind a couple of cars in front of him. If the plaintiff looked for oncoming traffic she looked with an unseeing eye, and her testimony on the point could not be considered in the case. Miller v. Baltimore, 161 Md. 312, 316, 157 A. 289; Susquehanna Power Co. v. Jeffress, 159 Md. 465, 470, 150 A. 788, 71 A.L.R. 1198; Faucett v. Bergmann, 57 App.D.C. 290, 22 F. (2d) 718; Yellow Cab Co. v. Lacy, 165 Md. 588, 592, 170 A. 190.

Testimony of other witnesses to the accident all contradicted the version of the plaintiff, and added nothing to the case to be considered on her behalf. The weight of all the evidence was for the jury and for the court on the motion for a new trial, not for this court on the question of its legal sufficiency to support the verdict.

The...