Court Opinion

ID: 9842863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:20:16.960237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:00.556991
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The bus here involved, moving counterclockwise around heavily traveled Du-pont Circle, had to pass as in an S-curve around an elliptical curbing in order to proceed westerly on P Street. A cross-walk extends from the north curbing of P Street to a safety island in the center of P Street. The exhibit before us indicates that the west-bound lane is so narrow that when the bus is swung to make a turn into P Street, no other vehicle physically could have “gotten in between the bus and the curb.” *701The driver so testified, even as he said the accident was “about in the middle of * * * the traffic lane.” The “closest” to the curb the right front of the bus “ever got was about four feet.” Yet other evidence undoubtedly gave the jury a clear picture of how the bus was maneuvered in reverse-curve fashion from the circular lane of Dupont Circle to the point of its impact with the boy, but the foregoing physical facts suffice for present purposes.
The time element was short, as is so often true, only a few seconds at most. The driver had been required to stop twice for traffic signals after he had entered Dupont Circle. After his last stop prior to the accident he accelerated to a speed of approximately 10 miles per hour. “When I first saw the boys I was still accelerating. But I. hadn’t turned out of the circle then. I was preparing to.” “I don’t believe I accelerated much more after that, because about the time I saw them I was getting ready to make the turn. And as soon as I started to make the turn, I rested my foot on the brake then.”
So the jury could have concluded that when the driver first saw the boys, he was approaching at a speed of some 14 or 15 feet per second. He could have sounded his horn, but “I don’t remember whether I did or not, no.” The boy testified he heard no horn blown. The driver saw that the boys had their backs turned toward him, and the jury could have concluded that the driver had given no warning of his approach. The jury might well have reasoned that a bus driver should know that a small boy might start out into the street. If he were to do so, he might get into the path of the bus. A warning blast of the horn might have caused the oblivious boy to stay where he was.
But that is not all, for after deciding that the boys would stay where they were, the driver took his eyes off the boys. He looked to the left; he looked to the right; he looked into his rear view mirror to “make sure” that an automobile might not try to pass the bus when he swung it around the S-turn into P Street. While he did so, it is clear that the boy started into the crosswalk. The next time the driver saw the injured boy, the latter was moving “towards the bus,” as the driver said. But the jury might have thought it more correct to say “as the bus moved toward the boy,” for even after the impact, the boy lay in the crosswalk. The bus, making its turn, was then going about five miles an hour. Too late the driver saw the boy. He jammed on his brake and a near tragedy was averted, but the boy was injured. The driver had been trying to “make sure” no vehicle would try to cut in from the rear when the condition he could have made sure about was before him.
Thus it was for the jury to say whether or not there was a negligent failure on the part of the driver either to sound his horn when he saw that the boys, or one of them, might enter a position of danger, or continuously to maintain an adequate lookout toward the only spot whence danger might arise, or even to stop the bus if under all the circumstances the exercise of due care was deemed to require that step. One thing stands out in any event, the driver was possessed of abundant opportunity to make a condition of safety sure. He either disregarded the danger of harm, or formed his own decision upon the probabilities of the situation as he assumed them to be, and went ahead.
Under these circumstances, since the jury might have found the boy was in the cross-walk before the bus made its turn, it was not error to let the jury have the traffic regulation as a matter of guidance.
Next, it was already “settled doctrine” in this jurisdiction more than fifty years ago, and still is, “that the question whether a child of tender years has exercised such care as would reasonably be expected from a person of his age and capacity is a question for the jury, *702and to be determined by the circumstances of the particular case.” 1
And finally, it is enough that the circumstances were such as to indicate a reasonable chance that the boy was inattentive and would not discover the approach of the bus. The driver was not entitled to act upon his own assumptions when it was within his power to make a reasonable effort to avoid injury.2 Thus, if “under one view of the evidence, the accident might have been prevented had the servant acted with prudence and promptness, it is for a jury to say whether a recovery may be had.”3

. Barstow v. Capital Traction Co., 1907, 29 App.D.C. 362, 373.

. Restatement, Torts § 480, comment b.

. Barstow v. Capital Traction Co., supra note 1, 29 App.D.C. at page 378.