Mastel v. Walker

Citations

• 246 Pa. 65
• 92 A. 63
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 473

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Vehicles,—Passenger on street car — Collision— Drivers — Proximate pause — Loss of earning power — Case for jury —Correct instructions--Court and jury.</p> <p>1. In an action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff in consequence of the collision of a trolley car on -which plaintiff was riding and defendant’s van, an instruction to the jury 4o the effect that if the accident was occasioned solely by the r .Norman’s running the car into the wagon when by proper care he <sould have avoided so doing, there can be no recovery, and in ordfi/r to find for the plaintiff the jury would have to believe that the accident was due to the negligence of the driver, is not open to tKe charge of inadequacy on the question of proximate cause, wheire it appeared that the plaintiff, an employee of a transit company,, was riding on the platform of a street car; that defendant’s van driven by one of his employees approached the car on an adjacent parallel track, that the horses of the van turned diagonally afcross the track on which the car was running and collided with it, ^driving the tongue of the wagon into the car and knocking the controller box violently from its place so that it struck the plaintiff and inflicted the injuries complained of, and there was evideuce that the driver was negligent in allowing the reins to lie loose on the hacks of the horses and in taking them up without due care in such a way as to swing the horses precipitately in front of the approaching car.</p> <p>2. Where in such case the evidence was conflicting as to whether or not a rut in the highway caused the horses to swerve, the trial judge committed no error in charging the jury that if they believed the accident due to a hole or rut in the street which the driver could not see, they might conclude that the injury to plaintiff was . caused by an unavoidable accident, but as there was no evidence that the driver could not see the alleged hole and that in broad day