Henry v. Epstein

101 N.E. 647, 53 Ind. App. 265, 1913 Ind. App. LEXIS 188
Indiana Court of Appeals·Decided April 18, 1913·No. No. 7,950·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

Hottel, J.

— This is an action by appellee against appellant to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained in a collision by one of appellant’s cars with a wagon in which appellee was riding. The complaint is in one paragraph. The only answer was a general denial. There was a trial by jury, resulting in a verdict in favor of appellee for $200, with which verdict the jury returned answers to interrogatories. Appellant moved for judgment on said answers which motion was overruled and exceptions saved. This ruling is the only error assigned and relied on for reversal.

1. In determining the question presented by this motion this court will consider only the pleadings, the answers to interrogatories and the general verdict. Indianapolis Southern R. Co. v. Emmerson (1913), 52 Ind. App. 403, 98 N. E. 895, 899 and authorities there cited.

[268] 2. “Every presumption is indulged in favor of the general verdict and it is only where a conflict between such answers and the general verdict is irreconcilable on any supposable state of facts provable under the issues, that such answers will control.” Indianapolis Southern R. Co. v. Emmerson, supra, and authorities there cited; see, also, Wabash R. Co. v. Keister (1904), 163 Ind. 609, 67 N. E. 521. In determining the question here presented, under the authorities just cited, we must assume that every material averment of the complaint had some evidence to support it. A condensed recital of these averments, necessary to render intelligent the questions discussed, follows: Appellee, at the time of her injury, was eleven years old and was with her father being conveyed in a one-horse covered huckster wagon fifteen feet long and six feet wide over and upon Prospect Street, a public thoroughfare running in an easterly and westerly direction in the city of Indianapolis and much used and frequented by the citizens of such city; that at said time appellant’s traction company and Henry, as receiver thereof, maintained in said street two interurban railway tracks running parallel with each other east and west and about five feet apart, the rails of such tracks extending above the street some six inches; that over these tracks said Henry as receiver was then operating one of its interurban ears outbound east over the south track in said street, and another interurban car, inbound, west over the north track of said street, each of said cars projecting some two feet over either side of said track; that the appellee was injured by a collision with appellant’s westbound ear running north at a point in said street where the two ear tracks converge and pass under the Prospect Street viaduct of the belt railroad; that upon either side of said street and tracks at the point where appellee was injured and for a distance of 150 feet in either direction, east or west, there was a perpendicular wall some fifteen feet high; that at and near the point where appellee was [269] injured the street was so narrow that this wall was only three feet from the near rail of appellant’s track on either side of said street; that great noise was made by trains passing over the viaduct of said belt railroad; that ‘ ‘ shortly ’ ’ before appellee’s injury her father, who was in charge of said horse and wagon and wholly responsible for its management and control, was driving west in front of one of appellant’s westbound cars within or partly within the track over which such car was being operated; that appellee and her father were at all times riding with their backs toward said approaching car and were unconscious and ignorant of its approach; that at the time of said collision “and for a period of five minutes more or less prior thereto the appellant was operating said car at ‘the negligent rate of speed of thirty-five miles more or less per hour’; that by reason of the elevation of said rails of said track sis inches above the street, they were unable to turn toward the south; that for a distance of 300 feet more or less from the place of said collision said wagon was being driven partly in said north track; that when they were ‘150 feet more or less’ from the place of collision they saw an interurban car coming east on the south track; that the father then turned the horse on the north track, and that appellant negligently struck with its car the wagon,” etc.

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Henry v. Epstein, 101 N.E. 647, 53 Ind. App. 265, 1913 Ind. App. LEXIS 188 (Ind. Ct. App. 1913).

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