Dregne v. Five Cent Cab Co.

40 N.E.2d 739, 313 Ill. App. 539, 1942 Ill. App. LEXIS 1173
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 18, 1942
DocketGen. No. 41,801
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 40 N.E.2d 739 (Dregne v. Five Cent Cab Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dregne v. Five Cent Cab Co., 40 N.E.2d 739, 313 Ill. App. 539, 1942 Ill. App. LEXIS 1173 (Ill. Ct. App. 1942).

Opinion

Mr. Justice IIebel

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment in favor of the defendant, Yellow Cab Company, entered by the circuit court of Cook county. At the close of plaintiff’s evidence, the court granted a motion for a directed verdict by Yellow Cab Company, and the jury, pursuant to the court’s instruction, returned a verdict of not guilty upon which judgment was entered.

Plaintiff brought suit to recover damages for injuries sustained while she was a passenger in a taxicab which ran into the supporting pier of a railroad viaduct in Evanston. There were four other defendants, which are not involved in this appeal; (1) The Five Cent Cab Company; (2) Chicago Yellow Cab Company, Inc., (3) the trustee of the Chicago and North Western Railway Company, and (4) Chicago and North Western Railway Company. Judgment was entered for plaintiff against Five Cent Cab Company for $7,500, the amount of damages assessed by the jury. Neither Five Cent Cab Company nor plaintiff has appealed from that judgment. A verdict was directed for Chicago Yellow Cab Company, Inc., judgment was entered on the verdict, and plaintiff has not appealed with respect to Chicago Yellow Cab Company, Inc. The jury found the trustee of the North Western Railway and the Railway Company not guilty, and judgment was entered on that verdict. Plaintiff has not appealed with respect to those defendants.

This appeal relates solely to Yellow Cab Company. Plaintiff asks for a reversal and new trial against the defendant because of alleged errors of the trial court hereinafter more particularly set forth.

The facts appearing in this case are that plaintiff, Carol Dregne, a young woman 22 years old, went to a moving picture show on Howard street, Chicago, on the evening of March 18, 1937. With her were two other young women, Edna Simonson and Minerva Louison. All three were employed and lived in Evanston. When they came out of the theatre about midnight they hailed a taxicab with the name “Five Cent Cab Company” painted on it. They gave the driver the nearest address, the home of Miss Simonson, in the south part of Evanston, where they were driven and where she left the cab. The other young women lived in the northwest part of Evanston, and they then gave the driver their addresses. The cab proceeded north on Ridge avenue and turned west on Emerson street, and while proceeding west on Emerson street, without any slowing down or warning, the cab crashed into the east end of the supporting pier of a viaduct of the North Western Railway Company which crosses Emerson street just west of Ashland avenue. There was a warning signal on the pier of the “button reflector” type, and the street lights were on. The driver’s negligence in failing to keep a proper look-out was the cause of the accident, and no witnesses were called by any of the defendants to prove otherwise.

The plaintiff was seriously injured. Her condition was critical for several days, and she lived only because of the splendid surgical and medical care which she received at the Evanston Hospital, where she was taken immediately after the accident. Her skull was punctured just above the base of the nose in such a manner that the attending surgeons were able to see through the torn dura into the brain tissue itself. The base of plaintiff’s nose was crushed; her nose and forehead, just above the left eye, were permanently disfigured; her upper front teeth were knocked out; her frontal sinuses were crushed in; her sense of smell was practically destroyed; and she sustained severe lacerations and bruises. She was confined to the Evanston Hospital almost a month and was unable to return to work until about six months thereafter. The jury assessed her damages at $7,500.

The Five Cent Cab Company made no motion for a new trial, made no motion for a remittitur; and the nature and extent of plaintiff’s injuries were at no time seriously in issue. The driver’s negligence and plaintiff’s injuries were established beyond question, and these facts were not in issue on the motion for a directed verdict. The only issue on that motion — and the principal issue of this appeal — was whether Yellow Cab Company should be held accountable for the negligence of Five Cent Cab Company. Plaintiff’s suggestion and contention is that the evidence and the reasonable and'natural inferences to be drawn from it show the Five Cent Cab Company was, at the time of the accident and at all times throughout its existence, from its organization, July 1, 1935, to the termination of its business in January or February 1939, a dummy corporation or shell, that it and its affairs were so organized and controlled by the defendant Yellow Cab Company as to make it merely an agency or instrumentality of Yellow Cab Company, and that Yellow Cab Company was responsible for the tortious act of Five Cent Cab Company the same as if a charter never had been .granted to that company.

From the evidence introduced at the trial, it appears that on September 28, 1921, Yellow Cab Company entered into a 20-year recorded lease for premises on the corner of Chicago and Kenney avenues in Evanston, at a total rental of $220,000, payable in instalments of $916.67 a month. The lease called for the construction by the lessor of a large garage, and a full year’s rental, $11,000, was deposited in escrow as security for rent. Yellow Cab Company used this garage as the headquarters for its Evanston fleet of over 100 taxicabs continuously from November 1, 1921, to July 1, 1935. The superintendent of the garage throughout this period was a man named William J. Hunter. The garage mechanic throughout this period was a man named Mike Conway. The floor superintendent in charge of drivers from 1931 to July 1, 1935, was a man named Bernard J. Schoenfield, a Yellow Cab employee of long-standing, whose employment began with the organization of the company in 1915. Prior to his work at the Evanston garage Schoenfield had been a Yellow Cab starter at the South Shore Country Club. The cashier of the Evanston garage for the period immediately preceding July 1,1935, was a man named Robert J. Mooney, but just how long Mooney had held that position does not appear from the evidence.

It appears that by the Spring of 1935, the situation in Evanston had become unsatisfactory from the Yellow Cab Company’s standpoint, and that the company was losing money on the operations from the Evanston garage. It had a lease with a rental of $11,000 a year, with six more years to run. In the Spring of 1935, the Yellow Cab Company decided to change the method of its Evanston operations.

On July 1,1935, an Illinois charter was issued to the Five Cent Cab Company, the incorporation papers for this new company having been prepared by an attorney for Yellow Cab Company, who had been present at Yellow Cab Company’s director’s meetings where abandonment of operations from the Evanston garage was decided upon. This attorney (a partner of the law firm which defended Yellow Cab Company on the trial of this cause) was called as a witness by plaintiff and was asked with whom she conferred in connection with preparing the incorporation papers of the Five Cent Cab Company. She answered, “ ... it was Mr. Samuels, Vice-President, or Mr. Bieze, Secretary, (of Yellow Cab Company) called me up and asked me if I would form a corporation for Mr. Hunter, who was then an employee of theirs. ’ ’

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Bluebook (online)
40 N.E.2d 739, 313 Ill. App. 539, 1942 Ill. App. LEXIS 1173, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dregne-v-five-cent-cab-co-illappct-1942.