Ballard v. Pacific Greyhound Lines

170 P.2d 465, 28 Cal. 2d 357, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 217
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJune 18, 1946
DocketL. A. 19598
StatusPublished
Cited by87 cases

This text of 170 P.2d 465 (Ballard v. Pacific Greyhound Lines) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ballard v. Pacific Greyhound Lines, 170 P.2d 465, 28 Cal. 2d 357, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 217 (Cal. 1946).

Opinion

SHENK, J.

The plaintiff had a jury’s verdict of $10,000 in an action for personal injuries claimed to have been suffered when a Pacific Greyhound bus on which she was a paid passenger overturned after striking an automobile parked on the road. The trial court granted the defendant’s motion for a new trial. The order specified that it was granted on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict. The plaintiff appealed.

The bus was being operated by the defendant’s employee Hobert on Highway 101 between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo. Hobert had been employed as driver by the defendant for about nine months prior to the accident and was familiar with the route. According to his testimony on behalf of the defendant, Hobert was driving the bus south from Salinas on the morning of January 3, 1943, in fair weather. At 6:30, about an hour out of Salinas, the bus was rolling at a speed of 35 miles per hour with the lights on. As it rounded a long right curve with a slight up-grade, Hobert observed 100 feet ahead a ear without lights parked at an angle on the right side of the road with the left wheels on the pavement and the left rear wheel jutting into “the middle of the roadway.” The paved portion of the highway consisted of two lanes, each ten feet wide. There was no other traffic ahead or behind the bus. Because of the angle of the lights of the bus at the curve Hobert did not see the parked car until he “was too close”; he “cut to miss it, but not enough, and . . . clipped the corner of the car, knocking it off the highway.” He did not attempt to use the brakes until after the collision, when he realized that both the steering gear and the air line to the brakes had been broken. The bus went out of control, climbed the embankment on the right and overturned.

This court has recently reiterated the settled rule that the granting of a motion for a new trial rests within the discretion of the trial judge to such an extent .that an appellate court will not interfere unless an abuse of discretion clearly appears. All presumptions are in favor of the order and it will be affirmed if it is sustainable on any ground. (Mazzotta v. Los Angeles Ry. Corp., 25 Cal.2d 165, 169 [153 P.2d 338], and cases cited.) The trial court in considering a motion for new trial is not bound by a conflict in the evi *359 dence, and has not abused its discretion when there is any evidence which would support a judgment in favor of the moving party. (Estate of Green, 25 Cal.2d 535, 542 [154 P.2d 692] ; Hames v. Rust, 14 Cal.2d 119, 124 [92 P.2d 1010].) The only conflict may be the opposing inferences dedueible from uncontradicted probative facts. In such ease the trial court may draw inferences opposed to, those accepted by the jury, and may thus resolve the conflicting inferences in favor of the moving party, for “It is only where it can be said as a matter of law that there is no substantial evidence to support a contrary judgment that an appellate court will reverse the order of the trial court.” (Brooks v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 27 Cal.2d 305, 307 [163 P.2d 689]; Malloway v. Hughes, 125 Cal.App. 573, 580 [13 P.2d 1062].)

The plaintiff contends that the evidence shows as a matter of law that the defendant’s driver was negligent; therefore that the court abused its discretion in granting a new trial. The contention assumes that the negligence of the driver was the only question before the trial court on the motion. The defendant had made the motion on all of the statutory grounds.

The plaintiff is a woman 59 years of age whose normal weight is 225 pounds. She was asleep at the time of the accident. The impact forced her head through a window and a piece of glass pierced her right ear lobe. The glass was removed when medical aid was rendered at San Luis Obispo. Later in Los Angeles stitches were used on the lacerated ear lobe and X-ray photographs were taken which revealed no dislocations or other bony pathology. The evidence is that the plaintiff sustained some concussion, bleeding at the nose for a period following the accident, pain and impairment to the hearing in the right ear, pain down the spine, across the shoulders, down the back, across the hips and down the right thigh. There had been strain in the ligaments of one ankle. The plaintiff complained of continuous pain, and of dizzy spells during which she would “just go over,” the last one having been about a week or two prior to the trial when she was in the house alone; that such spells had occurred frequently while she was alone in the house, when, afraid of falling, she would proceed to the bathroom on hands and knees. Other than the lacerated ear lobe, ligamentous and muscle sprains to the spine and ankle, the plaintiff’s injuries were entirely subjective. The degree of impairment of hearing *360 and of any permanency in the disabilities disclosed was in conflict. It also appeared that the plaintiff while in her home had sustained burns in January, 1941, and since that time had not returned to her previous employment as janitress in a bank.

After the accident the plaintiff made frequent trips to doctors. At first the trips were daily, and then two or three times a week for a period of six months. She had been examined and treated by other doctors and specialists in addition to her attending physician, Dr. Robert S. Wal’d. The plaintiff was discharged by him on June 23, 1943. Thereafter she continued to consult and take treatments from others, and made three additional visits to Dr. Ward. In April, 1943, prior to discharging her, Dr. Ward sent her to a Dr. Gerty, a physician and surgeon, who practiced psychiatry at Pasadena. Although the plaintiff submitted to examination by Dr. Alvin Gerty, she maintained at the trial that she went to him “by mistake,” under the belief that she was being sent to a specialist who was to examine the bones in her head.

Dr. Alvin Gerty was called as a witness by the defendant. After giving qualifying evidence, he testified that at Dr. Ward’s request he examined the plaintiff pursuant to an appointment made by her and that he gave her information and advice. The plaintiff invoked section 1881 of the Code of Civil Procedure providing that a licensed physician ‘ ‘ can not, without the consent of his patient, be examined in a civil action, as to any information acquired in attending the patient, which was necessary to enable him to prescribe or act for the patient. ...” The defendant sought application of the proviso of the section which reads, “that where any person brings an action to recover damages for personal injuries, such action shall be deemed to constitute a consent by the person bringing such action that any physician who has prescribed for or treated said person and whose testimony is material in said action shall testify.

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Bluebook (online)
170 P.2d 465, 28 Cal. 2d 357, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 217, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ballard-v-pacific-greyhound-lines-cal-1946.