Hoyer v. Lake Shore Electric Railway Co.

Citations

• 104 Ohio St. (N.S.) 467

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Directed verdict — Facts conclusive upon review — Questions for jury — Automobile upon interurban crossing —Duty to stop car — Care to prevent collision — Evidence of negligence — Failure to stop car — Question of fact — Game of fatal injury — Collision with interurban or with trolley pole.</p> <p>1. When a court directs a verdict at the close of plaintiff’s testimony, in an action for personal injury, the testimony and admissions shown by the record must be taken as true; and where the record presents a state of facts from which different minds may reasonably arrive at different conclusions on the ultimate fact as to whether or not an automobile was standing on or across the track of an interurban railway company when its car was. approaching, 300 feet distant, in the daytime, driven at a high but lawful rate of speed, with no obstruction of view, there is presented a question for the jury.</p> <p>2. Under such circumstances, it is the duty of the agents of the railway company in charge of the car so traveling, if it be the fact that the automobile is standing on or across the track, to use such means at their disposal as an ordinarily prudent person in like circumstances would have used in order to stop the car and prevent collision.</p> <p>3. And under such circumstances, where it appears that a car could ordinarily be stopped within a distance of 500 feet, and that on this occasion the car struck the automobile and thereafter .proceeded a distance of from 700 to 1,500 feet before coming to a stop, there is presented some evidence of negligence, and it is error for the court to direct a verdict.</p> <p>4. In a record, where the petition avers and the evidence tends to prove a failure and neglect on the part of the defendant company to stop its electric car within a reasonable distance after striking an automobile in which plaintiff’s ■ decedent was riding, that the automobile was carried a long distance on the fender of the electric car, that the