Wachsmuth v. Flanagan

81 N.E.2d 769, 335 Ill. App. 311, 1948 Ill. App. LEXIS 383
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 14, 1948
DocketGen. No. 10,266
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 81 N.E.2d 769 (Wachsmuth v. Flanagan) 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
Wachsmuth v. Flanagan, 81 N.E.2d 769, 335 Ill. App. 311, 1948 Ill. App. LEXIS 383 (Ill. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dove

delivered the opinion of the court.

On Sunday evening, December 1, 1946, Ralph Wachsmuth, accompanied by his wife, Marcella, and Frank Lloyd Allen and Charlotte Allen, his wife, was driving his automobile in a westerly direction on Dempster street in Evanston. James Edward Flanagan, accompanied by his wife, Bernice, was driving ' his son’s automobile in a northerly direction on As-bury avenue which intersects Dempster street. At this intersection the two automobiles collided. - On December 13, 1946, Ralph Wachsmuth, Marcella Wachsmuth, Frank Lloyd Allen and Charlotte Allen filed the instant complaint to recover the damages which they alleged they sustained as a result of the negligence of James Edward Flanagan, Sr. The defendant answered and he and his wife and son filed their counterclaim seeking to recover from Ralph Wachsmuth the damages they alleged they sustained as a result of his negligence. Prior to the trial the complaint as to ' Frank Lloyd Allen was dismissed upon his motion. After the issues had been made up, a trial was had resulting in verdicts finding the defendant in the original complaint, James Edward Flanagan, Sr. not guilty and finding the defendant in the counterclaim, Ralph Wachsmuth, guilty and assessing the damages of James E. Flanagan, Jr. at $300 and the damages of James Edward Flanagan and Bernice Flanagan at one dollar each. After overruling motions on behalf of the plaintiff for judgment notwithstanding the verdicts and for a new trial judgments were rendered upon the several verdicts. To reverse these judgments the record is before this court for review on appeal of the several plaintiffs.

It was stipulated at the trial that the property damage of the plaintiff, Ralph WacÉsmuth was $287.60 and the property damage of the defendant, James E. Flanagan,. Jr. was $300. Dempster street is a through four lane paved highway running east and west and approximately forty feet wide. Asbury street is a paved street running north and south and is thirty or thirty-five feet in width. One block east of Asbury street is Ridge street which runs parallel with Asbury. At the intersection of Ridge and Dempster streets there are traffic lights but not at the intersection of Dempster and Asbury, but there are regulation stop signs on Asbury protecting the traffic on Dempster. The Wachsmuth car had proceeded north on Ridge street, stopped in obedience to the red light and when it changed to green, the driver turned west on Dempster street. Both cars were properly lighted and the brakes on each car were in good condition. The pavement was dry and it was quite cold. Ralph Wachsmuth testified that he was driving his car and after he entered Dempster street he proceeded west and had attained a speed of twenty-five miles per hour and was fifty to seventy-five feet east of the Dempster-Asbury intersection when he saw the Flanagan car on Asbury street about fifty or seventy-five feet south of Dempster and proceeding north on Asbury toward Dempster at about twenty-five miles per hour. Mr. Wachsmuth testified that he watched the Flanagan car as it approached Dempster street and that it did not slow up or stop at the intersection hut entered the intersection and had partially crossed the intersection when the two cars came together north of the center line of Dempster street and east of the center of Asbury street. The testimony of Mrs. Wachsmuth, Frank Lloyd Allen and Charlotte Allen was corroborative of Mr. Wachsmuth. According to the testimony of James E. Flanagan, Sr., he was driving about twenty miles per hour on Asbury street as he approached the Dempster street intersection ; that when he arrived at a point ten feet south of the south side of the Dempster street intersection he stopped, looked to the east and saw the headlights of the Wachsmuth car three hundred feet to the east coming west on Dempster street, that he then started his car in low gear and proceeded to cross Dempster street, and was traveling twelve or fifteen miles per hour at the time the collision took place north of the center of Dempster street and in the northerly lane having traveled forty feet from the point where he stopped south of the stop sign. At one time he testified that he did not look to the east any more after he started his car after bringing it to a stop; that he did not know how fast the Wachsmuth car was traveling but it “didn’t seem to come particularly fast and I thought I had plenty of time to get across.” At another place in his testimony he said that after he started his car and had traveled five feet toward Dempster he again looked and saw the Wachsmuth car about two hundred or two hundred and fifty feet to the east; that he did not look again and had cleared the center of the intersection and the front end of his car was about even with the north curb of Dempster street when it was hit by the Wachsmuth car. Mrs. Flanagan testified that the car which her husband was driving was a 1936 Ford, that it was in good condition and the brakes had just been relined, that she was seated in the front seat beside her husband and saw the Wachsmuth car at the time the car in which she was riding had stopped a car length south of the south curb of Dempster street and again saw the lights on the Waehsmuth car when it was thirty-five to fifty feet to the east of their car when the front of their car had crossed the middle of the road and their car had proceeded north five or ten feet when it was struck by the Waehsmuth car. As a result of the collision, Mrs. Flanagan testified that her eyeballs were cut by broken glass and she was taken in an ambulance to the hospital and x-rayed and apparently was quite seriously injured. Mr. Waehsmuth suffered a simple fracture of the lower portion of the patella. He was hospitalized for two weeks and after two months was able to return to work, resuming the same work he had previously done.

Appellants insist that the trial court erred in giving instructions 9, 10 and 14. The ninth instruction is substantially the same as refused instruction 6 in Mowat v. Sandel, 262 Ill. App. 395, where it is set out on page 402. In our opinion this instruction does not assume that any plaintiff was guilty of negligence and in view of the language used in several instructions tendered by appellants and which the court gave, appellants are in no position to complain of- the use of the words “any plaintiff” and “such plaintiff” as these words were likewise used by appellants in their instructions. As there is no evidence that Bernice Cameron Flanagan was the invited guest of James E. Flanagan, that relationship should not have been referred to in the fourteenth instruction.

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Bluebook (online)
81 N.E.2d 769, 335 Ill. App. 311, 1948 Ill. App. LEXIS 383, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wachsmuth-v-flanagan-illappct-1948.