Herrin v. Cicardo

1 La. App. 587, 1925 La. App. LEXIS 86
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 3, 1925
DocketNo. 2010
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 1 La. App. 587 (Herrin v. Cicardo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Herrin v. Cicardo, 1 La. App. 587, 1925 La. App. LEXIS 86 (La. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

CARVER, J.

Plaintiff sues for damages for personal injuries inflicted on him by a delivery truck driven by defendant’s son,' Nick Cicardo, 18 years old.

He alleges negligence on the part of defendant’s son in driving at an excessive rate of speed, not signalling and not looking.

The defense is a denial of defendant’s negligence and a plea of contributory negligence.

From the testimony of the witnesses and the map and photographs introduced in evidence, the locus in quo is shown as follows:

Tenth street, in Alexandria, running north and south, is one of the main streets, traffic on the same being quite heavy, especially in the evening. It is forty-eight and one-half- feet wide from the sidewalk on the east to the freight depot of the Texas & Pacific ' Railway Company on the west. This depot extends on the west side of Tenth street a distance of two blocks. There is no pavement next to the depot.

Fisk street, thirty-three and four-tenths feet wide between curbing, fifty-three and four-tenths feet wide between property lines, comes to Tenth street from the east but does not cross it. The space on the west is occupied by the depot.

On the northeast corner of Fisk and Tenth streets is a candy kitchen and on the southeast corner is the house of Eppinette, one of plaintiff’s witnesses, facing Fisk street.

The map filed in evidence shows five doors of the depot marked as follows, beginning on the north, namely: 8D, 6, one unmarked and C. The doors are eight feet wide and the distance between. them nineteen feet.

The map shows certain positions fixed by Ball who made it from information furnished him by plaintiff, as follows.: Herrin’s car, pointed, south, -five feet from [588]*588the .depot and on edge of the brick pavement, the right wheel being over the edge .on the depot side; Herrin at the place where picked up, twenty-five feet south of his car; Brown-Robert truck in front of door C about sixty feet south of Herrin’s car; place where Cicardo’s truck stopped in Tenth street about sixty-five feet from Herrin’s car.

Plaintiff, as a witness, states his case as follows:

As I was coming down Tenth street, the car was -rolling as I had a puncture, I drove to the other side of the street on the right side and stopped. I opened the door on the right side and got out on the right side, I stepped down' and looked 'at the back tire on. the right side, and then the one on the front, which was entirely out of the street on that side. There was nothing wrong with either tire. I walked around the car towards the front. I got around there and the left tire on the front wheel was about two-thirds gone. I looked down the street, I saw a truck coming driven by Nick Cicardo, and then .as I was standing right by the side of the •c^r when he drove in, his right fender struck me.

Q. You state that you saw him down the street?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Please state how far his truck was down the street when you noticed him?

■' A. About across the court room.

Q. About twenty-five feet?
Q. When • he was twenty-five feet from you, what did you then do?

■ A. I just stayed by the side of my car.

Q.. And .then when he got up closer to you,, what did you do?

A. He struck me on the right side. He missed my car about one and one-half feet, •was how close he ran into my car.

Q. At the time he struck you, were you standing still or walking around towards (Interrupted).'

-...A. I was standing still.

Q. Did you think that he was going to come that close to your car?

' A. . No, Sir.

■ Q. -How far were you from -the left fender of your car?

A. Right against it.

He-then states that he was struck on-the right arm; was dragged down the street about twenty-five or thirty feet when he rolled off; that the truck did not -stop when he rolled off but ran “at least one-half block, whatever distance that is. It must have run sixty or seventy feet from where I fell off; that the first two persons reaching him were David Wilson and Charles Lassiter, and then Nick Cicardo who asked if he was hurt and kept saying “I did not see you, I did not see you”; that the incident occurred between 4:30 and 4:45 p. m., when it was still light; that his car had been stopped two or three minutes before he was struck; that he was standing right up against his fender, too close to see the deflated tire, but had previously seen it from the front; that he was standing there considering whether to fix it there- or not; that Cicardo did not sound his horn; that no other car was passing; that there was room for three or .four cars between his car and the east, side of Tenth street, so he did not think Cifcardo would strike him because Cicardo' was “sort of swerved out into the street” as shown by the tracing of Cicardo’s course on the plat; that he had gotten up unassisted and returned to his car when Ardoin came up.

He stated at first that his car was eight or ten feet from the depot (transcript, 34) but on looking at the plat, said it was as shown thereon, which was only three . or four feet from the depot. He also,, says there was no car between his car and; the depot and no room for any.

His account is substantially corroborated by Lassiter, a boy twelve years old. ip;the [589]*589low sixth grade, who had just come out of Eppinette’s house, and also by David Wilson, a school boy eleven years old, in the low sixth grade, who was on the sidewalk in front of. the candy kitchen. These boys both say they saw Cicardo’s car first when it was about fifteen feet from Herrin’s car and that it' was going at the rate of twenty miles an hour or more. Eppinette (T. 67) says it was going about this fast after Herrin was struck.

Nick Cicardo, driving the Cicardo truck, after stating that he saw a Ford car parked on the side of the street but saw nobody around it, was asked what happened then, and stated:

“I was coming near to Mr. Herrin’s car and he came around and when I was almost there to the front of his car, he stepped out to the right fender of my car and walked right into my car and he missed his hand and hit the wind-shield and turned around and fell to the ground, and I stopped — I stopped all at once, and then I moved on to the side of the street:
Q. Did you see him prior to the time that he stepped out from the front of his car?
A. I seen him when he stepped, right into my car, that was the only time I seen him.
Q. What part of your car did he step into ?
A. At the right fender, near the front wheel.
Q. Did your' car drag him or carry him any distance?
A. No, sir.

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Related

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6 La. App. 687 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1 La. App. 587, 1925 La. App. LEXIS 86, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herrin-v-cicardo-lactapp-1925.