Henry v. Cleveland (City)

29 Ohio C.C. Dec. 165, 27 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 321
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 2, 1917
StatusPublished

This text of 29 Ohio C.C. Dec. 165 (Henry v. Cleveland (City)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Henry v. Cleveland (City), 29 Ohio C.C. Dec. 165, 27 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 321 (Ohio Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

LIEGHLEY, J.

For convenience the parties will be named in the order they stood below.

Margaret Henry, the defendant, was arrested upon an affidavit charging her with the violation of sub-section 27 of ordinance No. 1341 in the following language: ‘ ‘ That she did unlawfully fail to stop and render such reasonable assistance as could be given after her said automobile had knocked down one Arthur Zipser.” The defendant was found guilty as charged and sentenced, from which judgment error is prosecuted to this court to reverse the same.

The language of said ordinance is as follows:

‘ ‘ In case of accident to or collision with person or property upon any of the public streets, parks or parkways of the city of Cleveland, due to the driving or operating thereon of any vehicle, the person so driving or operating such vehicle shall stop and give such reasonable assistance as can be given, and shall, upon request of the person injured or any other person, give such person his name and address, and, if not the owner, the name and address of the owner together with the registered number of such vehicle in case such vehicle is motor-propelled. ’ ’

Many errors are assigned for review by defendant, but we shall confine our consideration to one only, the validity or invalidity of the ordinance under which this prosecution was had.

If the language of the ordinance required the driver of an automobile to do only such things or perform such acts as would tend to identification, we would have very little difficulty with this question. For identification is essential for the proper exercise and control of traffic. Statutes that require the driver of an automobile to stop when an accident occurs and give his name upon request, have been held constitutional. Commonwealth v. Horsfall, 213 Mass. 232 [100 N. E. 362; 1914A Ann. Cas. 682], A statute of the slate of California, the language of which was very similar to the language of this ordinance, was considered by [167]*167the appellate court of that state in the case of People v. Diller, 142 Pac. 797. However, the question presented here was not considered directly by'the court. The inquiry there was whether the requirement that the driver give to the injured person his name, etc., was obnoxious to Art. 1, Sec. 13, of the constitution, which provides that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

Likewise other cases were cited which dealt with kindred subjects, but not the exact question here. Some of them were decided at a time when the automobile industry was in its ineipieney and proceeded upon the theory that the legislature had the power to deny entirely the right of the automobile upon the public highways. That therefore any restrictions placed upon their use were lawful. At the present date, in view of the universal use of the automobile, it will hardly be contended that the legislature has now that power. At least, if exercised, it would fall somew'hat short of popularity.

Attention is called, however, to the language of the ordinance, which reads, “shall stop and give such reasonable assistance as can be given.” What does that language mean? Does it mean aid the injured party to the curb stone ? Does it mean convey him to a hospital, hiring a nurse, securing a doctor, paying doctor’s bill? Does it mean render assistance at the point of accident or when taken away by the emergency ambulance at the hospital ? It is apparent that different minds would reach different conclusions in respect to the meaning of that phrase. It at least does mean that it requires the driver of the machine to give his time to the injured party, whatever the circumstances of the accident may have been. It will be noticed that no distinction is made between a driver who is blameless and one who may be solely at fault. It does not distinguish between one who knows or does not know that another has been injured. Some heedless individual may dash from a side street into the rear of a passing automobile and receive injuries entirely from his own carelessness and without the knowledge of the driver, yet if the driver does not stop and render such reasonable assistance as can be given, he is amenable to the provisions of this ordinance.

While the defendant was charged with a failure to stop and [168]*168also with, a failure to render such reasonable assistance, etc., the proof ivas directed more particularly to the failure in the latter respect. The ordinance does not provide for nor was she charged with knowingly doing either. It is claimed that this-is error.

The law is well established that in cases such as violations of. the food laws, the sale of skimmed milk and the sale of intoxicating liquors, etc., knowledge is presumed, but it will be observed that in all such cases the subject-matter about which some act is done by the defendant, is peculiarly within, his knowledge and under his control, or the circumstances surrounding the transaction are such as he is bound to know. One who removes journal brasses from a railroad car is bound to know whether he has permission. If a public officer converts public funds in his hands as such officer to his own use, the act of taking sufficiently characterizes the intent. In this ease the driver unfortunately in a collision may or may not know. The impact of a human being striking the side of a large motor truck or struck by the rear fender of such a vehicle, is so slight as to thereby render knowledge thereof improbable.

An act making it a crime to remove journal brasses or any attachments from the rolling stock of a railroad was judicially interpreted by the Supreme Court in the case of Kilbourne v. State, 84 Ohio St. 247 [95 N. E. 824; 35 L. R. A. (N. S.) 766]. Section 12561 G. C. made the removal a crime, and in the latter part of the section it was provided that whoever buys, receives or unlawfully has in his possession any of said articles shall be punished. Knowledge was not made an element of the crime of receiving. It was a case where the purchaser may or may not know that the goods were stolen or removed from railroad property. Likewise in this case, the driver may or may not know that another was injured, for the acts charged to be criminal are subsequent to the point of time of inquiry. The fact of being in a collision is not made a crime, but the parties therein are left to solve their relative rights in a-civil action. By this ordinance, however, the. acts of a driver are made criminal without any reference to his responsibility in the matter. ‘ ‘ Knowingly, ’ ’ [169]*169or words of equivalent meaning, are necessary- words in this ordinance.

Next, the driver is required to perform service regardless of his culpability or non-culpability and regardless of the culpability or non-culpability of the injured.

In the case of the State v. Boone, 84 Ohio St. 346, 347 [95 N. E. 924; 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1015], an enactment requiring a physician or midwife in attendance upon a ease of confinement to inquire and acquire certain statistics relating to the age and color or race, legitimacy or illegitimacy of the child, etc., and report the same, was held invalid and an unnecessary, unreasonable and . arbitrary exercise of the police power. Quoting from the opinion at page 359, the court says:

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Related

People v. Diller
142 P. 797 (California Court of Appeal, 1914)
Commonwealth v. Horsfall
213 Mass. 232 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1913)
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. v. People
77 Ill. 443 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1875)
Ohio & Mississippi Railway Co. v. Lackey
78 Ill. 55 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1875)
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Jones
24 L.R.A. 141 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1894)
Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway Co. v. Dey
12 L.R.A. 436 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1891)
Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Commonwealth
35 S.W. 129 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1896)

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Bluebook (online)
29 Ohio C.C. Dec. 165, 27 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 321, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/henry-v-cleveland-city-ohioctapp-1917.