Farrar v. Metropolitan Street Railway

155 S.W. 439, 249 Mo. 210, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 72
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 28, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 155 S.W. 439 (Farrar v. Metropolitan Street Railway) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farrar v. Metropolitan Street Railway, 155 S.W. 439, 249 Mo. 210, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 72 (Mo. 1913).

Opinion

BLAIR, C.

This is an appeal from a judgment for $15,000 recovered by plaintiff in the circuit court of Jackson county, in an action for damages for injuries sustained on the evening of August 18, 1908, when one [215]*215of defendant’s cars collided with a wagon npon which plaintiff and twenty-six other yonng ladies were riding. The wagon was obtained from The Kansas City Carriage and Buggy Company and was being driven by an employee of that company to whom the only direction given was that he should drive to Swope Park. The wagon was proceeding southward along Troost avenue and was approaching Forty-sixth street when it was struck by the car. The negligence alleged is the violation of a speed ordinance, failure to sound warning and want of ordinary care after defendant discovered plaintiff’s peril.

Some six or eight blocks north of Forty-sixth street the car and trailer involved in the collision stopped that the crew might replace a fuse which had “blown out,” and there the wagon upon which the plaintiff and her companions were riding passed them. Thence the wagon proceeded southward along the car line on Troost aVenue, the wheels astride the west rail of the south bound track. The evidence tends to show this use of the track was necessitated by the presence in the avenue of debris due to street improvements then being made. The hour was about 9 p. m., the night was not more than usually dark for the hour and season, the car was equipped with a headlight and the street lights were burning at Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth and other cross streets. From the point where the car stopped, as stated, to the point of collision the track is straight and there is no physical obstruction of the view.

There is sharp conflict in the evidence as to the speed of the car. The ordinance fixed a limit of twenty miles per hour. There is evidence the car was running twenty-five or thirty miles an hour for several blocks before it struck the wagon and that its speed was unchecked until the collision occurred. There is also evidence, offered by defendant, that the car stopped at Forty-fifth street and after starting again attained [216]*216a speed not exceeding fifteen miles per fionr which before tbe collision bad been reduced to a rate variously estimated from four to seven miles per bonr. There is also conflict in tbe evidence as to tbe distance tbe car ran after striking tbe wagon. Some of tbe evidence tends to show tbe stop .was made in a distance of seven to ten feet; one witness testified tbe stop was made almost instantaneously and other testimony is that the car ran fifty feet or more. Defendant’s motorman testified that after leaving Forty-fifth street lie saw the wagon three hundred feet away near Forty-sixth street. There was evidence the driver of the wagon looked back and saw the approaching car one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet away, drove off the track and then continued driving southwardly, gradually moving away from the west rail. The evidence conflicts on the question whether the wagon was “in the clear” as the car neared it. Plaintiff and her companions, constituting a church society, were indulging in what is called a hay ride and plaintiff was sitting near the center of the left hand or east side of the wagon, her feet hanging over the side. She says when she first observed the car’s approach the wagon platform, which protruded somewhat, was over the west rail, though the wheels were west of that rail; that the car was but a short distance away .and coming so rapidly that she had no time to do more than to attempt to raise her feet when the car struck the wagon and her foot was practically crushed off above the ankle.

The vestibule was several inches narrower than the body of the ear and the evidence shows the former passed the corner of the wagon without striking it, There is substantial evidence that it was the protruding rounded shoulder of the body of the car which struck the corner of the wagon platform. This platform was eighteen feet long, eight feet wide and three feet nine inches high.. It was between the edge of the [217]*217side of this platform and the corner or side of the car plaintiff’s leg and foot were cang'ht and crushed.

Negligence. Allegations Not Repugnant. I. It is contended that the petition seeks recovery upon allegations of negligence so inconsistent as to destroy each other and the pleading con-taming them. jNo such question was raised the trial court nor does counsel in this court advance any argument or cite any decision supporting this assignment. There is no necessary repugnancy between the allegations mentioned even if repugnancy could now have the effect claimed. Though the speed of the car exceeded the ordinance limit yet it might well be true the motorman discovered or ought to have discovered plaintiff’s peril in time to have avoided injuring her, in which even it would be the province of the jury to_ determine which act of negligence was the proximate cause of injury. Further, in principle the point has heretofore been adjudged adversely to defendant’s contention. [Sluder v. Transit Co., 189 Mo. l. c. 123, 136; Rapp v. Transit Co., 190 Mo. 150, 153.]

Sufficiency of Evidence. II. The sufficiency of the evidence is questioned. In this connection it is insisted (1) there is no evidence the car was running more than twenty miles an hour, (2) the excessive speed was not the proximate cause of injury, (3t) plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, (4) there is no evidence as to the time in which the car could have been stopped, and (5) the physical facts demonstrate the inapplicability of the humanitarian or last chance doctrine.

Proving Speed of street Car. 1. Several witnesses testified the car was running twenty-five to thirty-five miles per hour. Some of these were shown to be experienced in tim-mg moving rains, automobiles, boats and other moving vehicles and objects and the testimony of others was admitted without [218]*218objection. One of these witnesses was upon the sidewalk between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth streets; another was driving along Troost avenue in a buggy a block and a half north of the place of injury; another was a passenger on the trailer drawn by the car which struck the wagon. The testimony is entirely sufficient to support a finding that the speed of the car exceeded twenty miles an hour. In this respect this case is wholly unlike McCreery v. United Railways Co., 221 Mo. l. c. 26, et seq., upon which counsel seems chiefly to rely. In that case one witness, after saying' he did not notice the speed of the car, was directed to guess; another after guessing declared he didn’t notice the speed and the opinion of the third was a conclusion he drew from his own movements during the time the car moved a stated distance — a conclusion it would be for the jury to draw rather than the witness, but which the testimony of the witness did not warrant either witness or jury in drawing. The testimony in this case is markedly different. As said in the case cited (l. c. 28), “courts have never required a very high degree of experience to enable a witness to give his opinion upon the matter of the speed of a street car” and, measured by the usual standard (Muth v. Railroad, 87 Mo. App. l. c. 434) the testimony of the witnesses in this, case possessed sufficient probative fpree to warrant a finding of excessive speed- The conflict of evidence was for the jury to solve.

Proximate Cause. 2.

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Bluebook (online)
155 S.W. 439, 249 Mo. 210, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 72, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farrar-v-metropolitan-street-railway-mo-1913.