Venditti v. St. Louis Public Service Co.

240 S.W.2d 921, 362 Mo. 339, 1951 Mo. LEXIS 658
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJune 11, 1951
Docket42275
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 240 S.W.2d 921 (Venditti v. St. Louis Public Service 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
Venditti v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 240 S.W.2d 921, 362 Mo. 339, 1951 Mo. LEXIS 658 (Mo. 1951).

Opinion

DEAV, SPECIAL JUDGE.

The respondent brought this action as plaintiff in the trial court to recover damages for alleged personal injuries and other damages sustained by her while a passenger on one of the defendant’s busses in a collision with another of its busses in St. Louis, Alissouri. The cause was submitted on the res ipsa loquitur theory. The plaintiff recovered verdict and judgment for $20,000, which was reduced by remittitur to $13,000. Defendant’ appealed from the original judgment for $20,000, from the subsequent order of remittitur and from the final judgment for $13,000.

This is the second appeal in this case. In a former trial plaintiff obtained a verdict and judgment for $12,750, which, on appeal to this *342 court, was reversed and the cause remanded because of error in submitting the case to the jury on the issue of general negligence, when the plaintiff’s proof tended to establish specific negligence. Venditti v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 360 Mo. 42, 226 S. W. 2d 599.

The gist of plaintiff’s petition is that at the time in question defendant owned and operated the busses which were involved, and was engaged in the transportation of passengers for hire in St. Louis; that on June 28, 1948, plaintiff was a passenger on one of such busses designated as a Lee bus, which was southbound on 20th Street, and as that bus was crossing at Washington Avenue, defendant’s PageWellston bus violently collided with the Lee bus, causing plaintiff to be violently thrown from her seat therein and directly and proximately causing her to sustain serious and permanent injuries and the damages alleged. The petition further states that the collision was directly and proximately caused by the carelessness and negligence of the defendant in so operating the busses as to permit and cause them to collide with great force and violence.

The answer was in the nature of a general denial. No issue is now made of the ownership and operation of the two busses described, nor that the collision took place.

From the voluminous record before us it appears from the plaintiff’s evidence that at a very late hour on June 22, 1948, the plaintiff, a woman then 38 years of age, was a passenger on one of the defendant’s busses. She was returning from her work as a machine operator at a carton plant, where she had worked on a late afternoon and evening shift. The bus was being driven south on 20th Street. Plaintiff was dozing as she'sat on the second double seat from the front on the right-hand side, when the collision occurred with another of defendant’s busses at Washington Street. She remembered nothing further of what there took place except that she was being assisted by a police officer as she was standing on the sidewalk nearby. She saw the two busses standing close together. She was suffering terrible pain over her entire body,, especially in her back, and she was taken in a police car to the City Hospital. The evidence of the extent of her injuries and damages will be more fully stated hereinafter.

The only other witness besides the plaintiff who testified in her behalf concerning the collision was a passenger on the other bus involved in the accident, which was approaching westward toward 20th Street on Washington Avenue. He was seated on a side seat in front, facing south. His first knowledge of the collision was when he was suddenly hurled entirely across the bus, and all the other passengers on the same side were thrown from their seats. After the accident he saw that the bus in which he had been riding had been struck by the other bus described. The center of the bus he was in was ‘ ‘ buckled ’ ’ over to the front door by the collision. On cross-examination this witness said he had not observed the automatic signal *343 lights at the crossing and at the time of the collision as he was facing south. The verdict for $20,000 was unanimous. On the motion for new trial the court ordered a remittitur of $7000.

Defendant’s first point is that this court in its ruling on the first appeal in this case established the law of the case, the effect of which, it is claimed, is to require the plaintiff, on retrial, to submit her ease on specific negligence; that evidence of the specific cause of the collision was available to plaintiff, and having failed to produce it, the application of the res ipsa doctrine is not justified.

The fact that plaintiff’s petition stated a cause of action under the res ipsa loquitur doctrine, and that her evidence in the record before us established such a cause, is evident under the rules of law too well settled to require citations here. The point made is that in a former trial two certain witnesses called by the plaintiff gave testimony tending to show the specific negligence which caused the collision. The reference is to the operators of the two busses, former employees of the defendant, who, in the course of their testimony in plaintiff’s behalf, in the first trial, attributed to each other a failure to comply with the automatic traffic signals at the intersection. This court, on the former appeal, upon the record then before the court, affirmed the trial court in its order granting a new trial for error in submitting the cause on general negligence when plaintiff had thus supplied evidence of specific negligence. It is now contended by defendant that it has been shown by the first trial that such evidence is available to her, and that her duty to produce it has become the law of the ease by reason of the opinion of this court in the former appeal.

In Gibbs v. General Motors Corporation, 350 Mo. 431, 442, 166 S. W. 2d 575, 581, speaking of the res ipsa loquitur doctrine, the rule was quoted and approved that: “It may be added that the particular force and justice of the presumption, regarded as a rule throwing upon the party charged the duty of producing evidence, consists in the circumstance that the chief evidence of the true cause, whether culpable or innocent, is practically accessible to him but inaccessible to the injured person.” The application of that rule in a given case contemplates, of course, the particular case to which it is being applied, as shown by the record before the court. Whether the chief evidence is practically accessible to the defendant in a negligence case and inaccessible to the plaintiff must be determined from the record. It may be disclosed from the pleadings or from the record of plaintiff’s evidence. Tn the first appeal of this case this court discussed fundamental principles of the res ipsa loquitur theory and, among other things, said (p. 602) : “Ordinarily, a plaintiff may not place such burdens upon a defendant by merely showing himself to'be ignorant of the facts and that defendant should know the facts. An unlimited application of that reasoning would place too powerful a weapon in ignorance. Consequently, the rule is of re *344 stricted scope, to be applied in peculiar and exceptional cases where the demands of justice make its application essential. The reason for the rule is to be found in the particular case before plaintiff may invoke its application, and plaintiff should act in good faith in presenting' all the evidence reasonably within his power. ’ ’

Defendant asserts that such expression of this court on the first appeal forbids the submission of the case on general negligence in the second trial. It cites Trower v. M.-K.-T. R. R. Co., 353 Mo. 757, 184 S. W. 2d 428, and Walsh v.

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Bluebook (online)
240 S.W.2d 921, 362 Mo. 339, 1951 Mo. LEXIS 658, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/venditti-v-st-louis-public-service-co-mo-1951.