Court Opinion

ID: 9831836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:24:16.245142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:38.433664
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellees cite the following testimony of plaintiff Will T. White, as shown in the statement of facts:
“The line of the car track there ran east and west, and I looked this way (indicating), and I mean by that that I looked back east and when I looked west, I never saw any street car. * * * As to when I first observed the street car, I first heard the roar of it, and then it struck me. I could not tell you how long it was, but it was about (witness snaps fingers); I had already gotten on the track, and it missed the front of my car.”
Also the following given by Mrs. Mary Etta White, plaintiff’s wife:
“Before the collision took place, I looked to the west and I seen no street car, and I looked to the east and I seen no car and just in a second we were hit.”
Both of those witnesses testified that at the time of the accident the sun was shining in the west; that the west window was down, leaving nothing to obstruct their view in a westerly direction. They further testified that their hearing was good. Plaintiff Will T. White testified that his eyesight was good, and his wife, Mrs. White, testified that she wore glasses, but by the use of the same her vision was good.
Appellees insist that it was within the province of the jury to accept the testimbny just quoted as true, to the exclusion of other-testimony given by them to the contrary, and that, if the same be accepted as true, it reasonably tended to refute the charge of contributory negligence on their part, and that therefore this court was in error in holding that contributory negligence' on the part of the plaintiffs was conclusively shown as a matter of law.
It will be observed that in the testimony just quoted neither of the witnesses testified how far west he or she looked, or whether in the direction of the approaching street car, or in another westerly direction; nor did the plaintiff Will T. White testify how far he was from the track when he looked west. As pointed out in the opinion on original hearing, Mrs. White’s testimony was that the automobile was only, about 15 feet from the track when she looked west. Testimony contrary to well-known physical facts certainly cannot be given any probative force. If plaintiff Will T. White looked to the west and did not see the street car approaching until the collision occurred, as he testified was true, then it follows conclusively that he either did not look in the proper direction or else did not look far enough to discover the street car before the collision occurred. To say that on their testimony the jury would have the right to go further, and by indulging unwarranted inferences find that in approaching the point of collision plaintiff kept such a lookout for the approach of a street car as a person of ordinary prudence would have kept under such circumstances, and reject the other testimony of plaintiff and his wife that they did not see the street car until the collision occurred, when they could have seen it if they had looked, would be a mere play on words.
The same observation is applicable to the testimony of plaintiff Will T. White that the street car was derailed as a result of the collision, but that it was not knocked off the track by being struck by the automobile.
Appellees’ motion for rehearing is overruled.