Barton v. Faeth

186 S.W. 52, 193 Mo. App. 402, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 29
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 3, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 186 S.W. 52 (Barton v. Faeth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barton v. Faeth, 186 S.W. 52, 193 Mo. App. 402, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 29 (Mo. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

JOHNSON, J.

Plaintiff’s electric car, driven by Ms wife who was its sole occupant, collided with a seven passenger gasoline car owned by defendant and driven by his chauffeur, and this suit is to recover damages for the injuries sustained by plaintiff’s car in the collision. Defendant answered and filed a counterclaim for the damages to his car. Each party contends that the collision was caused by the sole negligence of the other. A jury was waived and the court rendered judgment for plaintiff on his cause of action and on the counterclaim. No declarations of law were asked or given. Defendant appealed and argues that the judgment is wholly unsupported by the evidence which shows beyond question that the collision was the result of negligence of Mrs. Barton in the operation of plaintiff’s car.

The collision occurred shortly after five o’clock, May 1, 1914, on Gillham Road, a boulevard in Kansas City. Coming from the south this boulevard, which is one hundred feet wide, divides some distance south of Thirty-ninth street (an east and west street) into two branches, one called West Gillham Road — -running northwesterly across Thirty-ninth street — and the other Harrison Boulevard, sometimes called East Gill-ham Road, running northeasterly. From the crotch of [404]*404this fork north to Thirty-ninth street, a distance of about one hundred and twenty-five feet, is a triangular flower bed, the apex or nose of which points south and is slightly rounded. Each of these branch roads or boulevards is approximately fifty feet wide, about half the width of the main or parent road, and their center lines produced southward meet and merge into the center line of the main road at a point about one hundred feet south of the apex of the triangle. At that point a person driving north along the center line of the main road and purposing to follow the center line of Harrison boulevard would enter the curve from a north to a northeasterly course and at a point opposite the place of the collision his line of travel along that curve would be twenty-five, or perhaps thirty, feet east of the center line of the main road produced northward to the apex of the triangle. A driveway thirteen feet and six inches wide connecting stables of the Park Hoard entered from the east at the junction of Harrison Boulevard with the main road and the south line of this driveway, if prolonged westward, would be fifty feet south of the triangle. A maple tree which stopped the automobile of defendant after the collision, stood about eight feet north of the north line of this driveway and thirteen and seven-tenths inches 'southeast of the point of collision which approximately was on the east line of the main road where it merged on a curve into the southeast boundary line of Harrison Boulevard.

Defendant’s automobile running down gradé at a speed variously estimated by the witnesses at from eighteen to thirty miles per hour came from the northeast on Harrison Boulevard pursuing a course near to but on the left of the center line. At the same time the witness Breyfogle was approaching in his automobile from the northwest on West Grillham Road at about the same speed and distance from the junction. Just [405]*405west of the latter road young people were playing on a tennis court and Breyfogle observed that defendant’s chauffeur who was looking westward across the triangle Ead his attention centered either on the tennis court or on Breyfogle’s car and did not appear to know of the presence of the electric car which was coming from the south, until the two cars were about fifteen feet apart when suddenly becoming aware that a collision was imminent, the chauffeur (still on the wrong side of the road) instead of turning to the right turned on a sharp curve to the left and the two cars collided at the east property line.

The chauffeur and other witnesses for defendant testified to facts tending to show that the abrupt turning of defendant’s car to the left just before the collision was compelled by an eccentric and not to be anticipated turning of the Barton car from its apparent course to one which brought it into the path of defendant’s car under conditions which made it'impossible for the chauffeur to avoid a collision, either by stopping or swerving his car to the right. In substance they say that the Barton car, instead of indicating a purpose of its driver to turn into Harrison boulevard, proceeded northward towards the apex of the triangle as though to proceed along West Gillham road, until it reached a point approximately twenty-five feet west of the Harrison Boulevard course when, suddenly and without warning, it turned east almost at right angles to the course it had been pursuing and ran straight across in front of defendant’s car which was following the center line of Harrison Boulevard. There were no other cars or vehicles in the way but defendant contends that the chauffeur in turning sharply to the left took the only chance of escape left open to him, since the cars were too close for a collision to be avoided by stopping and a turn to the right inevitably would have resulted in a straight head-on collision.

[406]*406Counsel for defendant insist that this description of the collision finds no substantial contradiction in the evidence of plaintiff and is made indisputable by an admission of Mrs. Barton (who was allowed to testify, without objection to her qualifications as a witness) that the accident occurred about twenty-five feet south of the apex of the triangle. This was brought out on cross-examination and is much relied upon by defendant as an admission that the Barton car ran to a point twenty-five feet south of the apex which, as stated, was twenty-five feet west of the Harrison Boulevard center line, and then turned squarely eastward. We think such an inference cannot legitimately be drawn from what Mrs. Barton said. The fact disclosed by all the evidence is that the accident or collision occurred on, or very near, the east boundary line of the road, at least fifty feet east and approximately twenty-five feet south of the apex of the triangle, and it is obvious from this particular bit of testimony, when read in the light of the other testimony of this witness and of the undisputed facts of the collision, that she was merely stating how far south of the apex the place of collision was, without reference to other directions.

There is substantial evidence introduced by plaintiff to show that the Barton car at no point failed to keep to the east or right side of the G-illham-Harrison median line. Coming up Grillham road it ran on the east side but there was an automobile standing in the road near the east line in front of the Park Board stable and the Barton car curved towards the center of the road to pass around that car and then back towards a course near the east line and was thus drawing away from the middle of the road when the collision became imminent because of the facts that defendant’s car was running at excessive speed on the left side of the road and the chauffeur was inattentive to the course in front of him. The speed of the Bar[407]*407ton car at no time exceeded seven or eight miles per hour, while the speed of defendant’s car, as shown by plaintiff’s evidence, was from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour. Ordinances of Kansas City pleaded and introduced in evidence prescribed a speed limit of fifteen miles per hour on such boulevards and provided that ‘-‘A vehicle meeting another shall pass on the right.”

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Related

Estate of Scott v. Scott
173 S.W.2d 115 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1943)

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Bluebook (online)
186 S.W. 52, 193 Mo. App. 402, 1916 Mo. App. LEXIS 29, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barton-v-faeth-moctapp-1916.