Benjamin v. Noonan

277 P. 1045, 207 Cal. 279, 1929 Cal. LEXIS 488
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedMay 24, 1929
DocketDocket No. S.F. 13028.
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 277 P. 1045 (Benjamin v. Noonan) 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
Benjamin v. Noonan, 277 P. 1045, 207 Cal. 279, 1929 Cal. LEXIS 488 (Cal. 1929).

Opinion

PRESTON, J.

In this cause the judgment for plaintiff is affirmed. The action is one to recover damages for personal injuries received as the result of an automobile accident which occurred in San Francisco on August 14, 1926, at about 10:40 P. M., while plaintiff was riding as his guest in the automobile of appellant John F. Noonan. Said appellant, with plaintiff in his car, was driving west on Irving Street at a speed varying from twenty to thirty miles an hour; at about the same time appellant Harold Gallagher, at the wheel of a Studebaker roadster, accompanied by defendant H. C. Gallagher and another person, was proceeding south on Forty-eighth Avenue at a slow speed, perhaps fifteen miles per hour, having stopped just previously to avoid hitting an obstruction in the street. The night was very foggy and the two automobiles collided where Forty-eighth Avenue intersects Irving Street. Plaintiff was thrown from the car and severely injured in the manner hereinafter described. She subsequently commenced this action for damages, including as defendants the drivers of both machines. Trial was had before a jury and a verdict was returned in her favor for the sum of six thousand dollars. Judgment followed, from which both defendants Noonan and Harold Gallagher have appealed, claiming, first, that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter *282 of law, and, second, that the court erred in the giving of-certain instructions and the withholding of others requested to be given.

The claim of contributory negligence is based upon the argument that notwithstanding the foggy weather and poor visibility, plaintiff negligently permitted her host to travel the entire distance between Thirteenth and Forty-eighth Avenues, on Irving Street, a residential and business district, at a speed ranging from twenty to thirty miles an hour, without the slightest protest, remonstrance or request that he either diminish his speed or permit her to leave the car, which failure on her part to either so speak or act amounted to contributory negligence as a matter of law and that the court erred in refusing to give a requested instruction bearing upon this point. This claim is urged in the face of plaintiff’s undisputed testimony that she had never driven an automobile and was not qualified to judge the safety or nonsafety of driving conditions, and that, although she was of a nervous temperament, the speed at which appellant Noonan drove on the night in question did not seem to be excessive or fast enough to arouse any sense of fear in her. It is unnecessary to discuss the point at length. This very situation was before us and received our full consideration in the recent case of Shields v. King, ante, p. 275 [277 Pac. 1043], Upon that authority, and the cases there cited and for all the reasons therein set forth, we hold the contention that plaintiff here was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law and that the court erred in refusing to give the instruction mentioned to be wholly without merit. In other words, a guest passenger, traveling by automobile, is bound to exercise ordinary care for his own safety, but whether or not he has exercised such care is a question of fact, which, unless the evidence is all one way, must be submitted to a jury, and their determination thereof is conclusive.

Appellants complain of an instruction given by the court at its own instance which first stated the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act (Stats. 1923, p. 517) to the effect that vehicles shall be driven on the public highways at a careful, prudent, reasonable and proper speed, so as not to endanger the life, limb or property of any person, and that it shall be lawful to drive at a speed not exceeding *283 fifteen miles an hour in traversing an intersection of highways where the viéw is obstructed, etc., and then charged that a violation thereof constituted negligence as a matter of law. They contend for the distinction that an infraction of said provisions would constitute not negligence per se but mere evidence of negligence which might or might not amount to proof of negligence.

We find no error in said instruction. As said in Scragg v. Sallee, 24 Cal. App. 133, 144 [140 Pac. 706, 710] : “While it is undoubtedly correct to say that the act of driving a vehicle over a street or public highway beyond the speed limit established by a municipal ordinance or a statute merely constitutes evidence of negligence in cases where damage has followed the infraction of such an ordinance or law, the rule in this state is, however, that it is conclusive evidence of negligence (citing cases). Therefore, the statement that such an act is ‘of itself negligence,’ or ‘negligence as a matter of law’ or ‘negligence per se’ (equivalent expressions) is, in this state, strictly correct.” (See, also, Baillargeon v. Myers, 180 Cal. 507, 508 [182 Pac. 37]; Flynn v. Bledsoe Co., 92 Cal. App. 145 [267 Pac. 887]; Towne v. Godeau, 70 Cal. App. 148 [232 Pac. 1010]; Greeneich v. Knoll, 73 Cal. App. 1 [238 Pac. 163].) We find nothing in the cases cited by appellants at variance with the rule above set forth.

Appellant Gallagher attacks three instructions which told the jury in effect that even though he had the right of way at the intersection in question, he had no right to proceed blindly in reckless disregard of obvious danger, but it was his duty to keep his machine under such control as would enable him in the exercise of ordinary care and skill to avoid a collision, and if he failed in these respects or if by the use of ordinary care and skill he could have stopped his automobile within fifteen feet and failed to do so, then he was guilty of negligence proximately causing injury to plaintiff. To our mind the evidence amply warranted instructing the jury as to appellant’s duty under the circumstances, which duty was properly limited in all three instructions to the use of ordinary care and skill to avoid an accident. In fact, an instruction almost identical with one of them was approved in Meyers v. Bradford, 54 Cal. App. 517-519 [201 Pac. 471]; see, also, Rush v. Lagomar *284 sino, 196 Cal. 308, 317 [237 Pac. 1066] ; Reaugh v. Cudahy Packing Co., 189 Cal. 335, 340 [208 Pac. 125]; Hatzakorzian v. Rucker-Fuller Desk Co., 197 Cal. 82 [41 A. L. R. 1027, 239 Pac. 709]; Truitner v. Knight, 83 Cal. App. 655, 661 [257 Pac. 447]; Broedlow v. LeGros, 88 Cal. App. 671 [263 Pac. 1027].

Appellant Gallagher further contends that there was no premise in the evidence for the instruction given the jury to the effect that even though they believed plaintiff’s physical condition might continue or grow worse as a result of her injuries, it had to appear with reasonable .certainty that such condition would continue or grow worse before that fact could be considered in computing any verdict in her favor.

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Bluebook (online)
277 P. 1045, 207 Cal. 279, 1929 Cal. LEXIS 488, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benjamin-v-noonan-cal-1929.