[Download] "Haggerty v. Sullivan" by Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Haggerty v. Sullivan
- Author : Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
- Release Date : January 26, 1938
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 60 KB
Description
RONAN, Justice. In this action of tort for damages for personal injuries, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the case is here upon exceptions to the refusal to grant certain requests for instructions, to direct a verdict for the defendant and to grant a new trial. Both parties died after the commencement of the action and the original parties will be referred to as the plaintiff and the defendant, respectively. Adopting the view of the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff, a jury could find the following facts: The plaintiff, with three other women, was riding in an automobile operated by the defendant along a highway at a speed of from fifty to sixty miles an hour. The surface of the highway consisted of a strip of cement eighteen feet wide, on either side of which was a shoulder six feet in width. This road was wet at the time of the accident. The defendant turned her head to the right to speak to the three women who were seated on the rear seat, when the plaintiff, seeing an automobile approaching, said 'Look, May.' A companion gave a similar warning. The defendant then looked ahead and turned her automobile sharply to the right to avoid the oncoming automobile. She again pulled her automobile to the right and went off the cement road, across the shoulder, striking a culvert, breaking off a foot or more of the top slab, which was four inches thick, and finally stopped against a tree which was located sixty-three feet beyond the culvert and thirty-one feet from the centre of the road. The defendant had passed the approaching automobile about two hundred fifty feet from the tree, and had proceeded about one hundred fifty feet off the travelled part of the road before hitting the culvert, which was located nine feet from the edge of the road. Before reaching the scene of the accident the plaintiff told the defendant to slow down, and the latter reduced her speed from fifty-five to sixty miles per hour to thirty-five miles per hour, but soon increased the speed to the former rate.