Pearson v. Kansas City Ice Co.

234 S.W.2d 783, 361 Mo. 363, 1950 Mo. LEXIS 733
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 11, 1950
DocketNo. 41689
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 234 S.W.2d 783 (Pearson v. Kansas City Ice Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pearson v. Kansas City Ice Co., 234 S.W.2d 783, 361 Mo. 363, 1950 Mo. LEXIS 733 (Mo. 1950).

Opinions

BARRETT, C.

[ 783] Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lee Pearson instituted this action against the Kansas City Ice Company and its driver to recover damages for the wrongful death of their son,’Victor, Junior. Upon the trial of the action a jury returned a verdict for the defendants and the plaintiffs have appealed and assign as error the giving of the defendants’ sole cause instruction. The defendants contend, however, that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of the plaintiffs’ humanitarian submission and, therefore, any error in their instruction is immaterial.

The circumstances of the fatality, in general, were these: On August 7th, 1947, Victor who was then twelve years old, and his playmate, George Pearson, also twelve years old, were riding their bicycles north on Broadway, in Kansas City, between 25th and 26th Streets. They had left a filling station at 2543 Broadway and Victor was riding ahead of George, ten to fifteen feet. Four or five ear lengths north of the filling station, near 2529 Broadway, automobiles were parked along the east curb of Broadway and Victor was riding • about three feet out from the line of parked cars. The ice truck, a 1926 American-La France, driven by Mr. Hyle. who was then more than seventy years old, and as we understand, who had driven the truck since 1926, turned on Broadway [366]*366at 26th Street and proceeded north at a speed, according to him, of ten, twelve, not to exceed fifteen miles an hour. Victor’s father was an iceman and Victor knew Mr. Hyle. As the truck and the bicycles traveled north Victor turned or looked back over his shoulder and waved to Mr. Hyle and his bicycle handle bar hit the left rear fender of the third parked car, a Willys, and he was thrown into the street, about five and one half feet from the parked car, and the truck ran over him. The witnesses of both parties testified to these facts and there is no dispute concerning them.

The plaintiffs’ humanitarian case was submitted upon the hypothesis of Victor’s imminent peril and specifically that Mr. Hyle thereafter could “have turned said vehicle to the left and to have stopped the [784] same and thereby have prevented the truck from striking and injuring Victor.” The defendants say, as is the fact, that the time which must be considered in determining whether the truck could have been stopped or so swerved as to avoid the casualty “is limited to the period between the time when the bicycle struck the parked automobile and the moment at which the boy contacted the -truck.” And, the defendants point to certain evidence and urge that even under the most favorable view a finding that the truck could.have stopped or sufficiently swerved in that period would be based on mere conjecture and speculation. It is insisted that there is no evidence as to how far the truck could have been swerved and nothing to show how far west on Broadway Victor was thrown. It is also argued that the plaintiffs’ case as to certain distances, if accepted, is based upon split seconds, and in any event, it is urged that Mr. Hyle did all that was possible in the circumstances and that there is no substantial evidence that the truck could have been stopped or swerved so as to avoid the fatality after Victor’s imminent peril arose. It was the defendants’ contention that the true facts of the occurrence were, and their evidence supported the contention, that Victor was not ahead of the truck but was even with the right side of the truck’s cab when the bicycle hit the parked automobile, that he was not hit by the front wheel of the truck but was thrown under the truck and run over by the rear wheél only. And, of course, under that version of the occurrence there was not time and space in which to stop or swerve the truck and avoid hitting the boy. Likewise, even if Victor was ahead of the truck and was hit by the front wheel, there could be no humanitarian case if he was then so close to it that there was neither time nor space in which to stop or swerve after Victor’s bicycle hit the parked car and he was thrown into the path of the truck. That was, in effect, the situation in Dipaoli v. Langemann, (Mo. App.) 192 S. W. (2) 35, in which there was a defendant’s verdict. There a boy stopped at a street intersection astride his bicycle and, after looking, proceeded across the [367]*367intersection and Ms rear wheel was hit by an eastbound automobile. There the defendant’s speed was twenty miles an hour and the boy was but eleven feet away when the defendant first saw him. Likewise, in Yeaman v. Storms, 358 Mo. 774, 217 S. W. (2) 495, the speed of ten miles an hour and the distance of ten feet permitted a zone of peril in time of but two-thirds of a second. And in Danzo v. Humfeld, (Mo.) 180 S. W. (2) 722, when a truck hit a pedestrian, the court summarized the -'situation by saying: "But no evidence was introduced from which it could be inferred that the driver of the Humfeld truck saw, or in the exercise of the highest degree of care could have seen, plaintiff (and his demeanor) prior to the instant plaintiff emerged from in front of the Coca-Cola truck.” But- that is not the situation here and the difficulty with the defendants’ position is that the evidence upon which they rely is the defendants’ evidence and it ignores, or compels a rejection of the plaintiffs’ evidence which is not contrary to the physical facts or so incredible as to compel rejection. Here the evidence conflicts as it did in Koebel v. Tieman Coal & Material Co., 337 Mo. 561, 85 S. W. (2) 519, as to whether a truck hit a bicycle, some witnesses said it did and some said it did not, hence it was for the jury to decide. The bicycle cases are collected in the annotation 172 A. L. R. 786.

In the first place, there were other general facts bearing upon the specific question. Broadway is forty-two feet wide and, according to the plaintiffs’ evidence, there was no southbound traffic and no traffic from the north near the truck. The parked Willys automobile was six to seven feet wide and Victor was traveling about three feet out from the parked car and was thrown about five and one half feet into the street from the parked car. A policeman measured the distancé from the east curb of Broadway to the right-hand wheels of the truck and he said that the distance was twelve feet seven inches. Since the parked Willys was six to seven feet wide and Victor was thrown about five and one half ■ feet into the street from the Willys, it is a reasonable inference that' he was thrown into the path of the truck. The [785] truck left skid marks upon the pavement and the policeman said that these marks did not swerve or turn but ran in a straight line for a distance of ten feet.

The boys had been in the filling station at 2543 Broadway to get a drink and had been playing with -the water fountain. Donald Krampe, who operated the filling station, said that he was. ¡standing in the island of his gasoline pumps and watched the boys as they proceeded north down the street. Because his evidence is the crux of the plaintiffs’ case, the salient parts of it follow. He said that the boys stopped at the end of the filling station driveway, "got in a little powwow there and started on down the street” north, [368]*368Victor ahead of George, and he was looking at them and at the truck and saw the truck hit the boy. lie saw the bicycle hit the parked car. ‘‘He was waving at the truck driver, the boy that had the accident. * * * His bicycle, the handle-bar hit the car, spun him in and spun him out in the street, he fell in the street. * * * Well, now, sir, he fell as fiat as a man could fall.Q. Did you see him move any after that? A.

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Bluebook (online)
234 S.W.2d 783, 361 Mo. 363, 1950 Mo. LEXIS 733, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pearson-v-kansas-city-ice-co-mo-1950.