Cloud v. Market Street Railway Co.

168 P.2d 191, 74 Cal. App. 2d 92, 1946 Cal. App. LEXIS 1131
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 22, 1946
DocketCiv. 12917
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 168 P.2d 191 (Cloud v. Market Street Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cloud v. Market Street Railway Co., 168 P.2d 191, 74 Cal. App. 2d 92, 1946 Cal. App. LEXIS 1131 (Cal. Ct. App. 1946).

Opinions

DOOLING, J.

In an action for wrongful death tried to the court without a jury judgment went for the defendants. The plaintiffs, the widow and nine-year-old child of the decedent through her guardian ad litem, have taken this appeal.

Decedent was a conductor employed by the respondent Market Street Railway Company (hereafter called the com[95]*95pany). He was off duty at the time of his death and was killed at about 3:42 a. m. on March 21,1939, by being crushed under the front end of a streetcar of the respondent company at the terminal of its No. 5 and No. 7 lines near the ocean beach in San Francisco. At that point the cars of the two lines run around separate loops and the company maintains a shelter or station for intending passengers. It is equipped to be lighted at night by overhead lights but it was the practice of the company to extinguish these lights at about 2 a. m. and the lights were extinguished at the time that decedent met his death. The night was dark and the place of the casualty was not illuminated in any way. The car which struck decedent was a No. 7 car and was just coming to a stop when the impact with his body was felt by the motorman. His body was found under the front end of the car lying across the rails and the front wheels of the car had not passed over it.

The headlights of the car did not illuminate the tracks ahead of it as the car proceeded around the loop, being thrown off to the outer side. The motorman testified that in addition to the headlights the car was equipped with “dash lights” which did illuminate the rails for a distance of about 10 feet in front of the car, that he was watching the track ahead of the car and saw nothing, that he heard a slight bump at the left front door of the ear and almost simultaneously felt a bump under the front platform and brought the car to a stop.

A post mortem examination of decedent’s blood showed the presence of .35 of one per cent of ethyl alcohol. Dr. Carr, pathologist at the San Francisco coroner’s office, testified that a person with that percentage of alcohol in his blood would be stuporous, comatose and unable to move, that there are people who could be ambulatory with that amount of alcohol in the blood, although the witness had never seen one. Mr. Swim, toxicologist to the coroner, who had made the examination of decedent’s blood, testified under the circumstances hereinafter noted, that most people with that amount of alcohol in the blood would be ambulatory, although some would be comatose and unable to move.

Decedent had a pass, as an employee of the company, which entitled him to transportation on any of its cars.

Appellants’ main contention is that the evidence does not support the judgment, or to put it affirmatively, that the evidence is such as to require a judgment for plaintiffs as a [96]*96matter of law. Briefly put appellants contend that the evidence compels the following findings: that decedent at the time of his death was a passenger to whom the company owed the highest care; that he was lying on the track so incapacitated from drink that he could not move and was completely helpless and unconscious; and that the failure to have the station lighted or to observe decedent’s position of peril establishes defendants’ negligence as a matter of law.

It is an integral part of their argument that the competent evidence before the court will support no other finding of decedent’s condition than the one that he was so overcome by the effects of liquor at the time of his death as to be deprived of his senses and his ability to move, that he was lying on the track senseless and helpless. In assaying this contention we must, of course, apply the accepted rule on appeal that if there is any substantial, competent evidence to support the judgment of the trial court that evidence must be accepted and every reasonable favorable inference to be drawn therefrom must be indulged. (Crawford v. Southern Pacific Co., 3 Cal.2d 427, 429 [45 P.2d 183]; Juchert v. California Water Service Co., 16 Cal.2d 500, 503 [106 P.2d 886].)

If the testimony of the motorman was believed by the trial court decedent was not lying on the track ahead of the car before the impact, the motorman’s testimony being that he was watching the track which was illuminated for 10 feet ahead of the car by the “dash lights” and did not see the decedent at any time before the impact. These facts plus the motorman’s testimony of a bump at the left front gate will support the inference that decedent was at the side of the car in a standing position and was thrown by collision with the gate under the slowly moving car. While the motorman’s testimony was given under Code of Civil Procedure, section 2055, it was none the less evidence in the case to be weighed with all the other evidence in determining the issues of fact. (Smellie v. Southern Pacific Co., 212 Cal. 540, 559 [299 P. 529] ; Joseph v. Vogt, 35 Cal.App.2d 439, 441 [95 P.2d 947]; Figari v. Olcese, 184 Cal. 775, 782 [195 P. 425, 15 A.L.R. 192].)

Appellants attack the credibility of the motorman’s testimony that he heard a bump at the front gate, on the ground that neither in his report, his previous testimony or otherwise prior to the trial, had he ever mentioned this fact. [97]*97These were matters for the trial judge to consider in weighing the testimony and the judge in his discretion was entitled to believe the motorman’s testimony given at the trial.

Appellants’ position is that Dr. Carr’s testimony establishes conclusively as a scientific fact that decedent could not have been ambulatory at the moment of collision. To this there are several answers. In the first place Dr. Carr testified that some persons in decedent’s physical condition could be ambulatory. In the second place the motorman’s testimony, as we have shown, will support a finding that decedent was in fact ambulatory. Expert testimony is not conclusive and may be controverted by lay testimony establishing inconsistent facts. (Arais v. Kalensnikoff, 10 Cal.2d 428 [74 P.2d 1043, 115 A.L.R. 163].) Finally the testimony of Dr. Carr as an expert was contradicted substantially by that of Mr. Swim, hereinafter more fully discussed.

If there is any doubt whether a person who is dead drunk and unable to move can be guilty of contributory negligence (see Coakley v. Ajuria, 209 Cal. 745 [290 P. 33]) there is none that an ambulatory person in a state of intoxication can be guilty of contributory negligence and is held to the standard of care of an ordinarily prudent person. (Emery v. Los Angeles Ry. Corp., 61 Cal.App.2d 455, 461 [143 P.2d 112] ; Brkljaca v. Ross, 60 Cal.App. 431, 438 [213 P. 290]; 38 Am.Jur. 883; 45 C.J. 997.)

The trial court found that decedent was guilty of negligence which proximately contributed to his injuries and death. If, as the trial court was entitled to infer, decedent while standing or walking near the track permitted the car, which he must or should have seen slowly approaching, to strike him, this finding is fully supported by the evidence.

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Bluebook (online)
168 P.2d 191, 74 Cal. App. 2d 92, 1946 Cal. App. LEXIS 1131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cloud-v-market-street-railway-co-calctapp-1946.