Williams v. Halley

265 P.2d 60, 122 Cal. App. 2d 350, 1953 Cal. App. LEXIS 1488
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 30, 1953
DocketCiv. No. 8298
StatusPublished

This text of 265 P.2d 60 (Williams v. Halley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Halley, 265 P.2d 60, 122 Cal. App. 2d 350, 1953 Cal. App. LEXIS 1488 (Cal. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

VAN DYKE, P. J.

The appellants suffered personal injuries when a bus in which they were riding as passengers for hire collided with one of respondent’s trains at a street intersection in the city of Stockton. Their several actions against the driver and the owner of the bus and against the respondent, Southern Pacific Company, were consolidated for trial. The jury returned verdicts in favor of appellants and against the driver and the owner of the bus; but the verdicts in all cases were in favor of respondent. This appeal is from the judgment entered upon the jury’s verdicts.

Appellants assign as error the exclusion of certain evidence consisting of a map and Ordinance 294 of the city of Stockton, and further assign as error the refusal of the trial court to give to the jury three instructions requested by plaintiffs. No question is raised as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the jury’s implied finding that at the time of the accident the respondent and its agents were free from negligence in respect to the manner and method of operating the train.

The charging portion of each complaint alleged that the respondent had “so carelessly and negligently operated its train as to cause the same to collide with the bus in which said plaintiff was riding.”

The ordinance which appellant sought to introduce in evidence granted to respondent’s predecessors in interest a 50-year franchise authorizing the construction, maintenance and operation of certain railroad tracks within the city. The train which collided with the bus was being operated along one of the tracks constructed and maintained by respondent under the franchise in question. Appellants called to the stand the city engineer of Stockton who testified concerning a map taken from the public records of that city and purporting to show the route of the tracks authorized under the franchise. But the map added nothing save visually to the provisions of the ordinance itself. Thereupon appellants offered the ordinance and the map in evidence and when the same was objected to by counsel for the respondent the jury was excused and the matter of admissibility was argued to the court. During that argument and when the court had indicated that it would refuse to admit the offered evidence the following occurred:

Counsel for appellants: “We’ll offer at this time . . . Ordinance 294 of the City of Stockton. We also offer to prove that . . . [it] is a proper ordinance which controls the [352]*352traffic to cross this particular track at this particular intersection on August the 2nd, 1951, and that . . . [it] had expired and that there was no ordinance of the City of Stockton, nor did the Southern Pacific Company have the right to use the street here in question granted to it by a two-thirds vote of the governing body of the City of Stockton which is, of course, the City Council. The Court: There isn’t any dispute about the facts? [Counsel for appellants]: I don’t think there is. [Counsel for Respondent] : No. The Court: That is, there hasn’t been any renewal of the franchise? [Counsel for respondent] : Well, at the present time it’s under negotiations. [Counsel for appellants] : It hasn’t been renewed. You will concede that ? [Counsel for respondent] : Well, Mr. Dunlap [the engineer] testified to that. [Counsel for appellants] : That it hadn’t been renewed. [Counsel for respondent]: That the application is pending. [Counsel for appellants] : All right. The Court: You may recall the jury.”

Thereafter, and at the request of appellants, the trial court instructed the jury in substance that the defendant, Southern Pacific Company, a corporation, was operating a train across the intersection at the time and place of the accident in question and that any negligence on the part of the crew or agents, servants and employees thereof in the operation, care, or maintenance of said train or crossing would be imputed to the defendant. The court further instructed the jury at the request of the appellants concerning liability of each of two agencies whose joint negligence was the proximate cause of injury without regard to whether one was more or less negligent than the other and further said: “You are instructed that the duty to exercise reasonable or ordinary care is imposed upon the operator of a railroad at public highway crossings with respect to persons traveling upon the highway and over the crossing, both as to the manner of operating the train and the maintenance of the crossing. The standard of care is that of the man of ordinary prudence knowing what the train crew knew, or should have known, and called upon to act in the same or similar circumstances.”

Specifically, upon the matter of the expired franchise the appellants requested only the following instructions, and these instructions the court refused to give:

“Public highways are for the use of the traveling public, and the right of the defendant railroad company is only to use it in common with the public. The fact that the defendant [353]*353Southern Pacific Company may have been granted at one time the right to lay tracks and operate a train across South Center Street which right has expired gives it no exclusive right to travel over that portion of South Center Street covered by its tracks.” (Emphasis ours.)
“The public highways of San Joaquin County, such as the place of the accident here involved, are for the use of the traveling public, and the right of the defendant railroad company to use it in common with the public depends upon their being granted such right by a two-thirds vote of the governing body of the city. The fact that the defendant Southern Pacific Company had been granted the right to lay tracks and operate trains across the highway, gave it no exclusive right to travel over that portión of the highway covered by said tracks; and while the defendant, Southern Pacific Company, a corporation, at one time had the right to run its trains over and upon the public crossing at the place in question, such right had expired.” (Emphasis ours.)
“You-are instructed that insofar as applicable to the facts of this ease, Section 7555 of the Public Utilities Code of the State of California, provides as follows: ‘No railroad corporation may use any street, alley, or highway . . . owned by the municipality within any city unless the right to do so is granted by a two-thirds vote of the governing body of the city.”

As stated, appellants complain of the refusal of the court to receive the offered evidence concerning the map and the ordinance. But it is obvious that no error can be predicated thereon for the reason that there was no issue raised by the pleadings nor at the trial concerning the fact of the granting of the franchise nor the fact of its expiration. We have shown that these matters were admitted by counsel of which fact the court previous to its ruling of exclusion took notice. It was not necessary, therefore, to introduce proof of these admitted facts. Whatever legal effect, therefore, appellants might claim followed from the expiration of the franchise was available for urging by the appellants by appropriate instructions requested of the court for that purpose. (De Arellanes v. Arellanes, 151 Cal. 443, 449 [90 P. 1059]; Cutting v. Oliphant, 27 Cal.App. 120, 124 [148 P. 940]; Matter v. National Fire Ins. Co., 54 Cal.App. 198, 200 [201 P. 605]; Stickel v. San Diego Elec. Ry. Co.,

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Related

Stickel v. San Diego Electric Railway Co.
195 P.2d 416 (California Supreme Court, 1948)
Malter v. National Fire Insurance
201 P. 605 (California Court of Appeal, 1921)
Cutting v. Oliphant
148 P. 940 (California Court of Appeal, 1915)
De Arellanes v. Arellanes
90 P. 1059 (California Supreme Court, 1907)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
265 P.2d 60, 122 Cal. App. 2d 350, 1953 Cal. App. LEXIS 1488, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-halley-calctapp-1953.