Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Hellenthal

56 Fla. 443
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJune 15, 1908
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 56 Fla. 443 (Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Hellenthal) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Hellenthal, 56 Fla. 443 (Fla. 1908).

Opinion

Parkhill, J.

The defendant in error sued the plaintiff in error in the Circuit Court for Duval County to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been re-ceived by the negligent operation of defendant’s street car. There was verdict and judgment for plaintiff, from which the defendant seeks relief here by writ of error.

All assignments of error have been abandoned except the fourth, .thirteenth, fourteenth and sixteenth.

The fourth assignment is based upon instruction number two given upon request of plaintiff, the same being-[445]*445as follows: “You are instructed, gentlemen -of the jury, that street cars, regardless of the power by which they are impelled have no- superior rights to other vehicles at regular crossings, but their respective rights are simply equal. It was the duty of the company’s employees to keep a vigilant lookout for persons on or approaching the tracks, especially at street -corners, and if you are not satisfied from the evidence that defendant has overcome the presumption of negligence existing against it by showing such vigilance on the part of its employees you will find for the plaintiff.” ■

In Consumers’ Electric Light & St. R. Co. v. Pryor, 44 Fla. 354, 42 South. Rep. 797, we held “that street cars, regardless of the power by which they are impelled, have n;o- superior rights to other vehicles or pedestrians at regular crossings, but their respective rights are simply equal.” In the same case, this court s'aid that the duty devolves upon the company’s employees to keep a vigilant lookout for persons on or approaching the track, especially at street crossings, and when they are discovered to be in danger or going into danger to use every effort consistent with the safety of passengers to avoid injuring such persons. The giving of this instruction was not error, therefore, unless, as is contended, it is so framed as to lead the jury to- believe that if the defendant failed to keep a proper lookout, the plaintiff was entitled to recover irrespective of the question as to whether the failure to keep a proper lookout had anything to do with the injury or not. We do not think 'this could have been the effect -of this instruction, especially in view of the following instructions given at the request of the defendant:

“3. If the jury find from the -evidence that the car mentioned in the evidence was running, slowly northward on Riverside Avenue at a rate of speed between [446]*446four and six miles an hour and the motorman was ringing the gong as the oar was passing the south-bound car ánd keeping a lookout for anyone attempting to cross the track and had the car under control and did not discover the presence of the plaintiff on the track until it was too late to stop the car, when the motorman did everything he could ft> stop the car, then the jury should find .the defendant not guilty.
4. Although the motorman should keep- a lookout, so as to avoid injuring any person attempting to cross the track he is not required to anticipate that a horse and wagon will be suddenly driven out from behind another car within ten feet of the car, which he is running, and if the jury find from the evidence that the injury to the plaintiff was caused solely by the plaintiff’s driving across the track from behind another car, 'and no negligence on the part of defendant contributed to the injury, then the jury should find for the defendant.
5. The jury is instructed that it is the duty of a person driving across a street car track to look and listen for the approach of a car, particularly when he drives out from behind a car, so as to obscure ‘bis view in one direction, and if the jury find from the evidence that the failure of the plaintiff so to do was the sole cause of the injury to the plaintiff then they should find the defendant not guilty.
6. The jury are instructed that the defendant has as much right to run its cars along its tracks as the plaintiff has to cross the track at street crossings, and it is as much the duty of the plaintiff to look out for an approaching car as it i's the duty of the defendant to look out for the approach of a Wagon.
8. If the jury find from the evidence that the motorman in the car used every ordinary and reasonable care [447]*447and caution to prevent the injury to the plaintiff then the jury should find the defendant not guilty.”

The charge here objected to miust be read in connection with the entire charge. In determining the correctness of instructions to’the jury, they must be considered as a whole, and if as a whole they are free from error, an assignment predicated on isolated paragraphs or portions, which standing alone might be misleading, must fall. Jackson v. Citizens’ Bank & Trust Co., 53 Fla. 265, 44 South. Rep. 516. And so the trial judge informed the jury in this case that “all charges given by the court of its own motion and at the request of the plaintiff and the defendant, are to be taken together as the law governing you in this case.” It might be well for all circuit judges to so inform the jury.

The thirteenth assignment is based upon the refusal of the court to give the 7th instruction requested by the defendant, the same being as follows: “If the juiy find from the evidence that the injury to the plaintiff was the result of accident without any negligence on the part of any one, then the jury should find the defendant not guilty.” We think this instruction might properly have been given' so far as -its correctness is concerned ;- but the proposition of law set forth -thereby was fully covered in substance by other instructions given by the court. For this reason the court did not err in declining to give this charge.

The fourteenth assignment of error is- based upon the refusal of the court to give charge numbered 9, requested by the defendant, the same being as follows: “A railroad company having the right to operate its cars upon its tracks, its cars canno-t, from the nature of things deviate therefrom as persons can, and, hence, it is the duty of a person driving a vehicle in approaching the track or driving along by the side of the track, to use [448]*448ordinary and reasonable care to ascertain the approach of cars and avoid injury therefrom. The employees of the company in control of a car have the right to presume that a person driving a vehicle will exercise such care, and are not required to- stop the car until it becomes evident to- a person of ordinary and reasonable care and prudence that the person driving the vehicle has failed in his duty and has placed or is about to place himself iru a perilous situation.”

This was a correct statement of the law in the abstract so far as it goes; but we think the propositions contained therein were applied to the facts in this case substantially by other instructions given by the court. That part of the first sentence of this instruction stating the duty of a person driving a vehicle in 'approaching the track or driving along by the side of the track to use ordinary and reasonable care to ascertain the approach of cars and avoid injury therefrom is substantially covered by the language- of the fifth and sixth instructions given for the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
56 Fla. 443, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jacksonville-electric-co-v-hellenthal-fla-1908.