Flood v. Keeley Brewing Co.

175 Ill. App. 441, 1912 Ill. App. LEXIS 178
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided December 11, 1912·No. Gen. No. 16,540·Published

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Duncan

delivered the opinion of the court.

This writ of error is prosecuted to reverse a judgment for costs in favor of Keeley Brewing Company in an action on the case for damages for the alleged negligence of the defendant in error, causing the death of plaintiff in error’s intestate, an infant daughter of the age of about two and one-half years. The count of the declaration upon which the case was tried charged that while the deceased was crossing 31st street near the intersection of Forest avenue, Chicago, defendant in error negligently drove its team of horses upon her and that its horses trampled upon, and so injured her as to cause her death.

One of the issues in the case was whether or not the negligence of the child’s mother, Mrs. Flood, contributed to the cause of its death. It is insisted by plaintiff in error that the court erred in instructing the jury for the defendant in error that contributory negligence of the mother would bar a recovery in this case, (1) because there was no evidence in the record tending to prove that she was guilty of such negligence; and (2) because the law is that contributory negligence of the mother would not be a bar to a recovery in the name of the administrator, by the father or other next of kin not guilty of such negligence. The evidence upon the question of the mother’s negligence simply shows that the deceased and her twin brother were very lively and active children requiring pretty close attention to keep them in doors, and that they were in the store of Mrs. Clinnin, their grandmother, on the south side of 31st street with their mother on the day of the injury; that the mother had just attended to the wants of the intestate at the toilet in the back of the store, and was attending to the wants of the intestate’s twin brother, when the bread man came into the front door of the store and at her, deceased’s, request let her out on the sidewalk; that at that moment a young lady, Miss Hopkins, who was in the store called out that Jane, the intestate, was going out into the street; that the mother then told her sister, Miss Clinnin, to go after Jane and that as the sister hesitated, the grandmother immediately started after Jane, and made the second grab for the door before she got it open; that she then went across the sidewalk to the curb and fell into the street on her knees, but continued to go on her knees after Jane, who was running towards the street car track about fourteen feet away, and while so doing the child was run over by the horses or knocked down, trampled and killed. The grandmother did all she could to reach the child in time to save her, and the evidence is slight to prove that the mother could have reached the child in time to save her had she gone in person, and the mother was not apprised of the child’s actual danger until after she was knocked down and trampled upon by one of the defendant in error’s horses. While the evidence may have been sufficient to submit the question of the mother’s negligence to the jury, yet we could not sustain a finding that she was in fact guilty of contributory negligence under the evidence as it now appears in the record. The plaintiff in error’s contentions, however, are completely answered by the fact that in his first and third instructions the negligence of the parents was submitted to the jury, and by said third instruction one of the facts required to be proved by the preponderance of the evidence before the jury could render a verdict for plaintiff in error, was that the mother was exercising reasonable care for the safety of said deceased. Plaintiff in error is, therefore, estopped to here complain of instructions which he, in substance, in his own instructions stated to be the law of the case. Warth v. Loewenstein & Sons, 121 Ill. App. 71; Chicago & A. R. Co. v. Harrington, 192 Ill. 9. Plaintiff in error in his argument also told the jury, in substance, by his attorney that the question of the parents’ contributory negligence was one for the jury, and that contributory negligence of either of them would bar a recovery. It is too late now to complain that that is not the law, and for the same reason the plaintiff in error is not in a position to complain of the court’s action in refusing to give his instruction No. 5, the latter part of which was in direct conflict with his instruction No. 3, which the court had already given. As to said proposition of law, it is true that other courts and some of our Appellate Courts have held that the contributory negligence of one parent or next of ldn will not bar the other parent or next of ldn not guilty of such negligence in case of the death of a minor child not chargeable with contributory negligence. Atlanta & C. Air-Line R. Co. v. Gravitt, 93 Ga. 369; Wolf v. Lake Erie & W. Ry. Co., 55 Ohio St. 517; Davis v. Guarnieri, 45 Ohio St. 470; Macdonald v. O’Reilly, 45 Or. 589; Donk Bros. Coal & Coke Co. v. Leavitt, 109 Ill. App. 385; Chicago City R. Co. v. McKeon, 143 Ill. App. 598. See also case note in Vinnette v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 47 Wash. 320, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 328. While our Supreme Court has perhaps never been called upon to discuss this precise question, yet in general expressions it has apparently decided the question adversely to the above holdings. City of Pekin v. McMahon, 154 Ill. 141; True & True Co. v. Woda, 201 Ill. 315.

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Flood v. Keeley Brewing Co., 175 Ill. App. 441, 1912 Ill. App. LEXIS 178 (Ill. Ct. App. 1912).

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