Blake v. Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co.

8 La. App. 310, 1927 La. App. LEXIS 673
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 14, 1927
DocketNo. 10,542
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 8 La. App. 310 (Blake v. Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blake v. Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., 8 La. App. 310, 1927 La. App. LEXIS 673 (La. Ct. App. 1927).

Opinion

JONES, J.

Plaintiffs, the major son and daughter of James P. Blake, bring suit against defendants for Thirty-eight thousand ($38,000.00) Dollars damages, for the [311]*311fatal injuries sustained by their father on March 23, 1925, at the corner of Poydras and Carondelet Streets. The items of damage are:

For the destruction of the earning capacity of their father ____$13,000.00
For his pain and suffering ________ 10,000.00
For his anxiety during his illness concerning his condition ____________ 5,000.00
For the damages plaintiffs sustained by his death________________________ 10,000.00
$38,000.00

The suit is against Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., through Cyril O. Rousseau, Receiver of Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., Maryland Casualty Co., Simon 'Hubig Co., Inc., and Cyril O. Rousseau, individually, and is based on the negligent operation by Cyril O. Rousseau, as president and agent of Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., of the Hudson car and by the employee of Simon Hubig Co., Inc., of a Ford truck belonging to Simon Hubig Co., Inc. The Maryland Casualty Co. is joined as defendant as insurer of the Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., and is brought into the suit under the provisions of Act No. 253 of 1918, the Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., being insolvent, and Cyril O. Rousseau, individually, is made defendant as the operator of the vehicle owned by Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc.

The negligence charged is that Rousseau drove the automobile of the Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., down Carondelet Street at a dangerous rate of speed when it was wet and slippery, crossed Poydras Street, a busy thoroughfare, though he saw the truck of the Hubig Company had started across Carondelet Street; that the driver of the Hubig Company truck started to drive across Carondelet Street either without looking or without heeding what he saw; if he did look, and negligently attempted to cross in front of the Hudson which was coming on a slippery street at a fast rate, that both drivers violated the provisions of the traffic ordinance, and, as a result of the combined negligence of the two drivers, a collision resulted, and the Hudson automobile ran upon the sidewalk and crushed plaintiffs’ father against an iron post on the sidewalk of the lake side of Carondelet Street and Canal Street side of Poydras Street.

Hubig Company filed exceptions of no cause of action and of misjoinder of parties.

Maryland Casualty Company filed exceptions that the petition disclosed no legal cause of action and that Act No. 253 of 1918 was unconstitutional.

Rousseau, Receiver of Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., filed exceptions of vagueness and no cause of action.

The exceptions were heard before Judge Skinner and overruled. After issue was joined, the case was transferred to Judge Cage for trial and the exceptions were again raised and argued at ' length and again overruled.

The Simon Hubig Pie Company, Inc., urges here earnestly its exception of no' cause of action.

This exception is based upon the allegation in the petition that its driver had started across Carondelet Street and that, the driver of the Hudson car saw the Ford truck “in ample time to have stopped and' avoided the collision,” but made no effort to stop. To sustain this contention, Hubig’s able attorney quotes the following words of this Court in Hirsh vs. Ashford, 5 La. App. 290:

[312]*312“Where two automobiles approach each at a right angle on intersecting streets and one of thgm enters the intersection some time before the other, it is entitled to proceed, notwithstanding that the other car is traveling on a street giving it the right-of-way over the one from which the car first entering the intersection emerged.”

In that case no third party was concerned. It was a question solely between the two colliding cars, as to which was negligent and the court found from the evidence, that plaintiff during a heavy rain storm, coming at the rate of fifteen to eighteen miles per hour from the cemetery on Canal Street ran into defendant at Scott Street when he was nearly over the neutral ground.

In the case of Shields vs. Johnson & Son, et als., 132 La. 773, 61 So. 787, where plaintiff, a passenger in a taxicab of defendant Johnson was injured by a car of the New Orleans Railway & Light, sued both as joint tort feasors and exceptions of no cause of action and misjoinder were filed by Johnson. The Supreme Court held:

'■‘The doctrine of ‘The last clear chance’ cannot be invoked by joint tort-feasors against one another. It has been applied only in those cases where the injured party has been negligent in exposing himself to peril; and where such negligence on his part will not be regarded as the proximate cause of the injury if the wrongdoer either became aware of the peril in time to avoid the collision that caused the injury, or might have become aware of it had he exercised reasonable care to ascertain whether a peril which was to be anticipated did in fact exist. 38 Cyc. 456. But the rule has no application even between the injured party and the wrongdoer when the former contributes to it; there, negligence is concurrent at the very time that the accident occurs. The question is one for the jury as .to whether, notwithstanding negligence on the part of the person injured in getting into a position of peril, defendant’s servants could have avoided the injury with the exercise of reasonable care and diligence, and hence whether or not they were negligent in this respect. 29 Cyc. 530; 36 Cyc. 1631.”

In the case of David vs. Bessaret, 8714 Orl. App., this Court, where an innocent bystander was injured by an automobile alleged in petition to have been forced on the sidewalk, “because another car” rushed from across street at full speed into Bourbon Street in front of it in violation of a City Ordinance, overruled an exception of no cause of action filed by the owner of the cross town car.

Here the petition alleges that the driver of the Ford truck proceded across Carondelet Street when he saw or should have seen the Hudson approaching at a fast rate on a slippery street, all in violation of the City Traffic Ordinance.

Furthermore, under the recent decisions of our appellate courts amendments are favored where the “no cause of action” is based on insufficiency of allegation.

See James vs. New Orleans, 151 La. 480, 91 So. 846; Squthern Iron & Equipment Company vs. Cardwell Stove Company, 154 La. 109, 97 So. 332; Stone vs. Crescent Encampment Company, Orl. App. Dig. 131; Guera vs. Levy, Tess. Orl. App. 131.

For above reasons we conclude that the lower judges correctly overruled this exception.

Rousseau and Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., answered denying that the damage claimed resulted from the negligence of either Rousseau or Jefferson-St. Charles Transfer Co., Inc., and placed the blame upon the driver of the auto truck of Hubig Co., Inc. They also set u,p the defense that at the time of the accident the automobile was not being used in the business of Jefferson-St. Charles [313]*313Transfer Co., Inc., but was being used by" Rousseau for his own personal purposes.

Maryland Casualty Co.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Morris v. Thomas
188 So. 166 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1939)
Calamia v. Myers
169 So. 900 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1936)
Reeves v. Globe Indemnity Co. of New York
168 So. 488 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1936)
Supervisor of Public Accounts, La. v. Bernard
150 So. 672 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1933)
Truxillo v. De Lerno
146 So. 71 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1933)
James v. J. S. Williams & Son, Inc.
143 So. 84 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1932)
Flotte v. Thomas Egan's Sons, Inc.
137 So. 220 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1931)
Bearman v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co.
134 So. 787 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1931)
Federal Schools, Inc. v. Kuntz
134 So. 118 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1931)
Wheeler v. Rodriguez
126 So. 715 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1930)
Cazeaux v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc.
124 So. 685 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1929)
Clade v. Checker Cab Co.
124 So. 611 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1929)
Francis v. Barbazon
120 So. 427 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1929)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
8 La. App. 310, 1927 La. App. LEXIS 673, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blake-v-jefferson-st-charles-transfer-co-lactapp-1927.