Driscoll v. Market Street Cable Railway

Citations

• 97 Cal. 553
• 32 P. 591
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 590

Syllabus

<p>New Trial—Verdict—Conflicting Evidence—-Review upon Appeal. — The appellate court will not disturb a verdict where there is a real and substantial conflict of evidence on material points, or where there is any real and substantial evidence to support the verdict; though when a jury catches at a mere semblance or pretense of evidence to take money from one party and give it to another without legal cause, the trial judge should set the verdict aside, and if he fails to do so, this court will -grant a new trial.</p> <p>Negligence — Street-railroads — Injury to Pedestrian. — The owners of street-railroads are to he held to due care in the management of their lines; and if they exercise such care, they are not responsible to a pedestrian who, in a careless, reckless, or absent-minded way, walks suddenly in front of a moving car, and is injured before there is time to stop it.</p> <p>Id.—Rights of Persons in Charge of Street-car.—The persons in charge of a street-car, upon a clear track, where there is no negligence on their part, have a right to assume that people will not suddenly cross in front of it.</p> <p>Id. — Death of Pedestrian — Failure to Ring at Street Crossing — Violation of Ordinance. — Where a pedestrian was struck by a street-car and killed at a street crossing, the failure of the person in charge of the car to keep its bell ringing from a point twenty-five feet from the crossing until the crossing was passed, as required by the terms of a city ordinance, is negligence, both as being in violation of a reasonable ordinance, and as being in itself, under the circumstances, careless.</p> <p>Id. —Insufficient Excuse for Negligence. — It is no excuse for neglect to ring the bell while passing a street crossing that the gripman could not ring it, because his hands were otherwise engaged, and that the conductor was temporarily absent from his post.</p> <p>Id, — Contributory Negligence — Questions of Pact — Conflicting Evidence — Appeal. — Where the street-rai