Henry v. Epstein

101 N.E. 647, 53 Ind. App. 265, 1913 Ind. App. LEXIS 188
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 18, 1913
DocketNo. 7,950
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 101 N.E. 647 (Henry v. Epstein) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana 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. Epstein, 101 N.E. 647, 53 Ind. App. 265, 1913 Ind. App. LEXIS 188 (Ind. Ct. App. 1913).

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]*2682. “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]*269injured 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.

It is also averred that the appellant saw and knew or negligently failed and omitted to see and know all of the conditions and situation of road, tracks and ears thereon above described and appellee’s situation and surroundings including the character of her wagon and the fact that the wagon in which she was riding was in or partly within the north track over which said car was approaching, and the respective distances of the walls, rails and tracks from and in relation to each other, “and the dangers imposed on plaintiff by the conjunction of all of such conditions and by each of them separately”; that appellants having such knowledge negligently omitted to check or stop said car, [270]*270and negligently failed to sound the gong on said car; that appellee’s injuries were the proximate result of each and all of said acts of negligence. The facts found by the jury are, in narrative form, as follows: Appellee was hurt in a collision, January 3, 1908, between appellant’s ear and a wagon driven by appellee’s father, near the Prospect Street viaduct of the belt railroad. The traction company has two lines of track running east and west in the roadway where the collision occurred. The north track of said railway is known as the inbound, and the south track as the outbound line. Appellee was riding in a huckster wagon, with the top, sides and back of the wagon covered. Appellee was sitting on a seat with her father in the front part of the wagon. The father was driving west from his home in Norwood into the city of Indianapolis along an extension of Prospect Street, between Norwood and said city, and had so driven for several squares prior to the accident along the left or south side of the roadway for several hundred feet immediately prior to the accident. The collision occurred near the bottom of an incline or hill in the road, and it was about 600 feet from the bottom to the top of said hill. The hill was 21 feet high. Appellee and her father saw a car about 1400 feet in front of them coming out of the city on the south track a few minutes prior to the accident. The father was at this time driving along the south side of said roadway, and upon seeing said car, some 1400 feet distant, immediately turned his horse to the north and across the inbound or north track in said road. The wagon in which appellee was riding was struck by a ear coming from the east on the north track, while the horse was being driven across said north track. The collision occurred about the foot of the hill. The car was within 50 to 100 feet of said wagon when it was turned across the north track. The motorman rang his gong and blew his whistle as soon as appellee’s father started to drive across the north track. The motorman reversed his power and ap[271]*271plied his emergency brake when said wagon started across to the north side of the street. At the time of the collision the speed of said car was 10 miles per hour, and the car stopped within 15 to 20 feet after the collision. The wagon was struck by the car immediately after it got on the north track. An outbound car came up to the place of the accident on the south track from the west 3 to 5 minutes after the accident. There was no ear at the place of the accident except the car in the collision.

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106 N.E. 377 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1914)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
101 N.E. 647, 53 Ind. App. 265, 1913 Ind. App. LEXIS 188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/henry-v-epstein-indctapp-1913.