Case ID: me_123/html/0570-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

May Palmer vs. Philomena Orlandello.
    Cumberland County.
    Decided April 5, 1924.
    The plaintiff recovered a verdict before a jury for personal injuries received in the Winter of 1922 while crossing a street in the city of Portland, being struck by the defendant’s horse which was running away, out of control, having, as the plaintiff alleged, been left in the street insecurely fastened.
    The case comes before this court on a motion for a new trial on the usual grounds. The only ground urged by the defendant in support of her motion is that the evidence fails to disclose any affirmative proof of due care by the plaintiff or from which it can be legitimately inferred,
    The plaintiff says the snow was piled very high alongside the sidewalks, that she had just stepped off the curbing on to the crosswalk when she was struck by the horse, that she heard nothing or saw nothing. It appears that both her hearing and sight were considerably impaired.
    Other witnesses corroborated her testimony that the snow was piled very high along the sides of the street following a big storm, perhaps six feet, or higher than the average height of man, and one witness corroborated, her testimony that she had just stepped off the sidewalk on to the cross-walk when she was struck.
    What a reasonably prudent person with her physical defects would have done to assure a safe passage across the street under the circumstances shown to have existed here, and whether the evidence fails to show that .she complied with that standard of care; or if in any respect she failed, it contributed in any degree to her injuries, was a question of fact for the jury as this court has frequently held. Shaw v. Bolton, 122 Maine, 232.
    While the case is not entirely free from doubt it is not so clearly wrong as to require this court to interfere.
    Motion overruled.
    
      Harry E. Nixon, for plaintiff. Henry C. Sullivan and Francis W. Sullivan, for defendant.