O'Brien v. Bieling

Citations

• 267 Pa. 383
• 110 A. 89
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 871

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Automobiles—Pedestrian—Contributory negligence —Case for jury.</p> <p>In .an action to recover damages for injuries suffered by a pedestrian from tbe operation of an automobile at a street crossing, tbe questions of defendant’s negligence and plaintiff’s contributory negligence are for tbe jury, where tbe evidence tends to show plaintiff bad proceeded from tbe north side of South Penn Square near the south exit of the City Hall in Philadelphia, to the safety zone, which was located just south of the south trolley car rail; there is but one line of car tracks, and they are located a little to the south of the center of South Penn Square; when plaintiff arrived at the safety zone he waited, with a number of other pedestrians, for the vehicular movements to stop; up to that time vehicles had been proceeding eastwardly on South Penn Square; just east of the west crossing of those tracks a traffic officer was stationed, who operated a signal device known as a semaphore, which regulates both the vehicular movements going east and the pedestrian travel which proceeds north and south across the square; plaintiff waited for several minutes, when the traffic officer signalled the vehicles to stop and signalled to the pedestrians who were standing at the safety zone to proceed across the street; in obedience to the officer’s signal plaintiff, together with a number of others, started to cross, but, before he had an opportunity to do so, an automobile bearing a California license disobeyed the officer’s signal and proceeded eastward, so that when the officer finally stopped it, the rear occupied about two feet of the crossing and its front extended over the crossing used by pedestrians going north and south on Broad street; with the California ear in that position, plaintiff and others who were using the crossing from north to south proceeded to go across; while plaintiff was crossing he saw defendant, who was operating an automobile, approaching from, the west,