Hilderbrand v. Baldwin

233 Ill. App. 278, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 188
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJune 11, 1924
DocketGen. No. 28,488
StatusPublished

This text of 233 Ill. App. 278 (Hilderbrand v. Baldwin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hilderbrand v. Baldwin, 233 Ill. App. 278, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 188 (Ill. Ct. App. 1924).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Thomson

delivered the opinion of the court.

By this appeal the defendant, Baldwin, seeks to reverse a judgment for $1,000, recovered by the plaintiff in the circuit court of Cook county, in an action in which the plaintiff, as Administrator of the Estate of his minor son, of about seven years of age, sought to recover damages occasioned by the death of his son, as a result of injuries received when he was knocked down and run over by a truck operated by the defendant’s servant, it being alleged that the injuries were occasioned by the servant’s negligence in operating the truck. It is the defendant’s contention that there is no evidence in the record supporting the verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, and also that the verdict and judgment are against the manifest weight of the evidence. It is also contended that the trial court erred in overruling the defendant’s objection to a certain ordinance of the City of Chicago, which was offered and received in evidence on behalf of the plaintiff, and that, further, error was committed in the giving of instructions.

The plaintiff’s intestate received his injuries at the entrance of a north and south alley, midway between University Avenue and Woodlawn Avenue, on the north side of 61st Street, in the City of Chicago. There was an apartment building bordering this alley on the east side and fronting on 61st Street, and immediately to the west of the alley there was a vacant lot. The sidewalk at this point was the ordinary concrete walk, 6y2 feet wide, and there was a space of about 5 feet between the outer side of the sidewalk and the curb of the street along the north side of 61st Street. The truck in question was traveling south in this alley toward 61st Street, and it either stopped or came almost to a stop at or about the inside line of the sidewalk. It then started up and proceeded out into 61st Street, turning to the west in that street. The deceased boy, Darrel Hilderbrand, was struck by the body of the truck, some distance back from the front, and this had the effect of twisting or turning him around and knocking him down. He fell in such a position that the back wheel of the truck passed over his body, resulting in the injuries in question which occasioned his death on the following day. Just where the boy was at the time he came into collision with the truck, is the subject of conflicting testimony.

Darrel, with his two brothers, had been playing in the vacant lot to the west of the alley. Four other boys, ranging in age from 12 to 15 years, two of whom testified for the plaintiff and two for the defendant, were playing along the sidewalk, with what are described in the evidence as pushmobiles. These were vehicles which the boys had made themselves, consisting of a board a few feet in length, with parts of a roller skate fastened on the under side of the board, at the two ends, and a box nailed to the upper side of the board. By holding the top of the box with their hands and with one foot on the board the boys propelled themselves along with the other foot. These boys were operating their pushmobiles along the sidewalk on the north side of 61st Street and as they approached the alley from the west, Darrel ran out from the vacant lot to the sidewalk, with one or two old umbrella sticks in his hands and apparently took a position on the sidewalk facing the boys who were approaching him, and waved the umbrella sticks back and forth in the air or on the sidewalk, meaning to block or retard the progress of the boys who were coming on their pushmobiles. In doing so, he was walking backward slowly along the sidewalk as the truck proceeded out of the alley, and he came into collision with the side of the body of the truck, as stated above. The truck was 28 feet in length and approximately 7 feet in width. The photograph of the truck which appears in the record shows a footboard along the side of the body of the truck, from about the driver’s seat to the back end of the truck, some 6. or 8 inches in width, on a level with the floor of the truck body. One witness testified that the overhang of the body of the truck did not exceed 3 or 4 inches beyond the caps on the hubs of the rear wheels.

The first count of the declaration alleged that the deceased was in the exercise of reasonable care for his own safety and that the defendant, by his servant, so grossly and negligently operated the truck that it struck the deceased and inflicted the injuries in question, causing his death. The second count was to the same effect except that it omitted the allegations as to due care on the part of the deceased, alleging instead that the deceased was a minor under the age of seven years. The proof showed that he had passed his seventh birthday two or three weeks before the accident. The third count in the declaration pleaded an ordinance of the City of Chicago requiring a person driving a vehicle out of an alley, to bring it to a complete stop before driving it across a sidewalk, and it then alleged that the truck in question did not come to a complete stop, and as a result, the injuries complained of were inflicted upon the deceased. The defendant filed a plea of the general issue.

Bobert Moore, a boy 13 years of age, testified that he was “about six squares of the sidewalk” from the alley at the time the deceased was injured. The evidence showed that these squares were about three or four feet across. This witness further testified that the deceased was about one or two squares from the alley, and further, that as the truck came along from the north, it slowed up to let a street car go by “and then Darrel started walking backwards and just as the truck started up, Darrel was right there on the curb and the body of the truck that extends out over the wheel hit him in the head and knocked him down and then the hack wheel went over him and cnt the corner.” He further testified that the deceased “did not at any time get off the sidewalk and into the alley before he was struck, and when he was struck he was right there on the corner, part way in the alley. As the truck went out of the alley it struck the curb and went over the curb. The truck ran over a part of the sidewalk as it made the turn.” The witness was asked about how far it went over the curb as it made the turn and he indicated with his hands, a distance of about 2 feet. This witness further testified that he heard no warning signal before the truck came out of the alley. On cross-examination, he testified that the truck slowed down “until it was going-just a little bit and then started up again,” but that it did not come to a dead stop before proceeding out of the alley. He was asked whether or not he had not testified at the coroner’s inquest, a few days after the occurrence, to the effect that the truck did come to a stop before proceeding across the sidewalk, and he stated that he could not remember whether he testified to that or not; that his memory of the occurrence at that time was better than at the time of the trial and that whatever he said at the time of the coroner’s inquest was true. It was later shown that he had so testified at the coroner’s inquest. This witness further testified on cross-examination that the curbing along 61st Street at this point was very low, indicating with his hands a height of about 3 inches.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
233 Ill. App. 278, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hilderbrand-v-baldwin-illappct-1924.