Mercer v. Rosenblath

100 So. 414, 156 La. 249, 1924 La. LEXIS 2011
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 5, 1924
DocketNo. 24463
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 100 So. 414 (Mercer v. Rosenblath) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mercer v. Rosenblath, 100 So. 414, 156 La. 249, 1924 La. LEXIS 2011 (La. 1924).

Opinion

THOMPSON, J.

The plaintiffs sue the defendant for damages for the benefit of their. 17 year old daughter, who was injured by being run into by defendant’s motor truck on the sidewalk of one of the streets of the city of Shreveport.

The case was tried by a jury which rendered a verdict in plaintiffs’ favor for $2,000 and which was approved by the trial judge. The defendant appeals, and the plaintiffs by answer have asked that the judgment be increased.

The plaintiffs lived in Baton Rouge, and their daughter was a typist and was employed in the clerk’s office of Caddo parish. She boarded on Hamilton street in the city of Shreveport. After office hours on the evening of the accident the young lady took a street car to go to her boarding place. The car traversed Piere avenue, and she got off at the intersection of Garden street just one block from Hamilton street where she was rooming. The latter Street intersects Garden street from the north, but does not extend across that street.

On leaving the street car the young lady walked along the sidewalk on the south side of Garden street until she got within 60 or 70 feet of Hamilton street, when she crossed over to the north side of Garden street, taking a diagonal course. About the time she reached the sidewalk, or shortly thereafter, the defendant’s truck came out of Hamilton street into Garden street, and suddenly turned to the right and ran into and upon the sidewalk, jammed the young lady against a wooden picket fence where she was pinned by, the truck, and standing in an upright position»until she was released.

The entire truck, except the left hind wheel, was on and across the sidewalk. The [251]*251young lady suffered a compound fracture of the bone of the left leg below the knee, her left ankle was sprained, and she received other bruises and lacerations of the body.

It is needless to refer to the testimony bearing on the question of negligence of the driver of the truck to any considerable extent. There were eight eyewitnesses to the accident, including the victim of the accident and the young son of the defendant, who was on the front seat with the driver. There is naturally some variance in the testimony of the several witnesses as to minor details and as to distances and the relative positions of the actors and the observers or bystanders. But the sum and substance of the whole testimony conclusively establishes a case of negligent and reckless handling of the truck, so gross and inexcusable as to amount to little less than criminality.

This phase of the case could well be left to rest on the testimony of Mrs. Tucker, the most favorable witness to the defendant and the only eyewitness who testified for defendant except his son. Mrs. Tucker was in a car driven by her husband. The car slowed down some 60 or 70 feet from the intersection of Hamilton street so as to permit Miss Mercer to pass in front across the street. Mrs. Tucker says that Miss Mercer had gotten more than half across the street and the Tucker car had gotten opposite the intersection, when the defendant’s truck came out into Garden street and ran so far over to the side that her husband had to turn his car closer to the curb to avoid being run into. She says that the truck then turned sharply down Garden street bearing towards the sidewalk, where it struck Miss Mercer on the’sidewalk about 34 feet from the corner of Hamilton street.

The evidence is so overwhelming and indisputable and the negligence so apparent that the counsel for defendant have not even attempted to discuss it in their brief.

Nor is there any support in the evidence for the defense of contributory negligence. All of the witnesses, with the possible exception of Mrs. Tucker, testified that Miss Mercer was on the sidewalk when the truck jumped over the curb onto the sidewalk and struck her. The only disagreement betwen the witnesses is as to the length of time she had been on the sidewalk when the truck struck her. Even Mrs. Tucker says that the young lady stepped upon the sidewalk, and the car struck her and pushed her over against the fence.

The.young lady was where she had the right to be. The sidewalk is a passageway for pedestrians and not for high-powered death-dealing motor trucks. It is idle in the face of the evidence to argue that Miss Mercer while on the sidewalk jumped in front of the car and by that act contributed to her injury. If she was guilty of any negligence in crossing the street in the middle of the block, that negligence ceased the moment the crossing was effected and she had reached the sidewalk, a place where she had the right to feel that she would be safe.

Assuming, however, that Miss Mercer had not completed the crossing when the truck turned into Garden street, practically two-thirds of the street (Mrs. Tucker says so) was clear and unobstructed, and at least three cars running abreast could have passed to the left of the young lady. But, even more than this, when the truck turned into Garden street, Miss Mercer was 34 feet away. The truck was running only 8 or 10 miles an hour and could have been brought to a dead stop for at least ten different times while making this run of 34 feet. As we have said already, the street was clear, the view unobstructed, and, unless the two young men in the truck were blind, they could certainly have, seen a human being, if one had been out in the street.

What they could have seen the law declares they did see. So that, if there was [253]*253the slightest room for the plea of contributory negligence, the defendant would nevertheless be responsible under the last clear chance doctrine. Burvant v. Wolfe, 126 La. 787, 52 South. 1025, 29 L. R. A. (N. S.) 677.

The only other defense, and in fact the main defense, is that the driver of the truck had not been employed to drive the truck; that he had never been permitted to drive the truck, and, in taking the truck out on the evening of the accident, the driver was acting without the scope of his emploj'ment. The young man, Glorioso, who was at the steering wheel of the truck at the time of the accident, had been in the employ of the defendant for several months.

On the day of the accident the defendant, his son Vivian, and Glorioso had been at work together on Caddo street. They came honre a little after 5 o’clock in the evening, all in the truck with Vivian driving. They unloaded some shingles and balusters into the barn in the rear of defendant’s residence. After finishing the unloading the defendant went into the house, leaving his son and the hired man in charge of the truck with instructions, as he says, to back the truck into the barn. The son tried to crank the truck, but it failed to go with the first attempt. The hired man then took his position in the seat under the wheel and the car was again cranked and was started. He drove out into Hamilton street, turned the corner into Garden street, and ran into -the young lady on the sidewalk.

An ingenious attempt was made by the testimony of the defendant and his son to show that Glorioso’s day’s work was over and that he drove the car out on his own accord, and at the same time to exonerate the defendant’s son by leading him into saying that he did not get into the car until it was too late to stop it and avoid the accident.

The effort signally failed. No one who reads the record impartially can reach any other conclusion than that the car was moved out into the street with the concurrent will and act of both the son and the employé.

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Bluebook (online)
100 So. 414, 156 La. 249, 1924 La. LEXIS 2011, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mercer-v-rosenblath-la-1924.