Barrington v. Pacific Electric Railway Co.

256 P. 567, 83 Cal. App. 100, 1927 Cal. App. LEXIS 628
California Court of Appeal·Decided May 13, 1927·No. Docket No. 5198.·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

CAMPBELL, J., pro tem.

This appeal is from a judgment on the verdict of the jury in favor of respondents in an action for personal injuries suffered by appellant in a collision between an automobile driven by appellant and an interurban car of respondent corporation.

Appellant specifies six assignments of error which he urges as grounds for a reversal of the judgment. The first four have to do with the giving and refusing of certain instructions. The fifth assignment of error is that the court erred in not requiring the defendant Sharpe, when upon the witness-stand, to produce his written report of the accident *102 made at the time to the Railway Company, and the sixth assignment of error is that the court erred in not requiring the defendant Sharpe to answer the question whether all of the persons whose names he took at the time were subpoenaed and did appear, as witnesses at the trial.

The accident occurred in the city of Los Angeles at the point where Manchester Avenue crosses the tracks of the respondent’s railway line running between Los Angeles and Long Beach, the west track being used for local cars between Los Angeles and Watts going southerly, and the east track for such cars going northerly. The two tracks between the east and west tracks are used by the company’s fast interurban cars between Los Angeles and Long Beach. The accident happened on the south-bound interurban track at about 10:40 o’clock on the morning of February 28, 1922. The appellant was going east at the time and the interurban car was going south. There is an automatic flagman or wigwag at the southwest corner of Manchester Avenue and the right of way of respondent Railway Company. Appellant could not get a view of the track from the direction the interurban car approached until he was within a few feet of the west track on account of the building located on the northwest comer of the intersection. The automatic flagman or wigwag was working and giving warning of the ear’s approach before and at the time appellant attempted to cross. At the time of the collision the interurban car was traveling eighteen to twenty miles an hour. Appellant drove his automobile upon the car tracks, and when on the track of the interurban his motor stopped and his automobile was stalled on the car track. Up to this point there is no dispute as to the facts.

Respondent F. R. Sharpe, the motorman on the interurban, testified that he first saw the automobile driven by appellant when his car was about 150 or 175 feet from the crossing; that the automobile was approaching the crossing; that appellant drove his automobile slowly—three or four miles an hour; that he was rolling very slowly; that he sounded his crossing signal—two long and two short blasts of the whistle; that as the car approached the crossing appellant started his automobile forward again at a fairly good clip, and when the car was abount thirty or forty feet from the crossing appellant stopped his automobile right in front of the car; that he applied his emergency brakes and re *103 versed Ms motors, wMeh was all he could do; that after the collision he stopped Ms car and when at a standstill the rear end was on the property line on the edge of the crossing. According to the testimony of Sharpe the collision was unavoidable. There is a conflict in the evidence as to how far the car was from the crossing when appellant’s automobile stalled on the ear track, appellant testifying that he could not see the interurban car when he drove upon the tracks and the witness, Mrs. Mattice, stating that when appellant’s automobile stalled the electric car was up at the next station away north, the other witnesses varying in their estimate of the distance the interurban car was away when appellant’s automobile stopped on the track, placing it all the way from 40 to 135 feet.

Appellant does not raise the point that the evidence is not sufficient to support the verdict, but claims that the question of contributory negligence should not have been submitted to the jury and that the court erred in not giving the instruction on this question proposed by him, as well as the giving and refusing of other instructions. In discussing the giving and the refusing of the instructions complained of it is sufficient to say that the instructions of the court are not included in the transcript; neither are the instructions requested and refused. The only instructions called to the attention of the court are those the giving of which and the refusal to give are made the subject of the claim of error and set forth in appellant’s brief. Alleged error predicated upon giving or refusing to give to the jury certain isolated instructions cannot be reviewed on appeal where the instructions given are not incorporated in the record (Foster v. Young, 172 Cal. 317 [156 Pac. 476]; Goldman et al. v. Dahlberg, 79 Cal. App. 380 [249 Pac. 536]; Harris v. Barnhart, 97 Cal. 546 [32 Pac. 589]; Churchill v. Moore, 4 Cal. App. 219 [88 Pac. 290]; O’Brien v. New Method Co-operative Laundry Co., 38 Cal. App. 532 [176 Pac. 879]).

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Barrington v. Pacific Electric Railway Co., 256 P. 567, 83 Cal. App. 100, 1927 Cal. App. LEXIS 628 (Cal. Ct. App. 1927).

256 P. 567 (Barrington v. Pacific Electric Railway Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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