Bean-Hogan v. Kloehr
Bean-Hogan v. Kloehr
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Elizabeth A. Bean-Hogan was injured by the overturning of an automobile in which she was riding as a paying passenger. She sued Kloehr Brothers, the owners and operators of the car, and received a judgment for $2,000, from which the defendants appeal.
The defendants were operating a line of automobiles carrying passengers in the city of Coffeyville. The plaintiff, with others, entered one of the cars with the purpose of being taken to her home. While the car was running at the rate of twenty-
The defendants argue that all the evidence was consistent with the hypothesis that the running into the dog was an accident that could not have been avoided by any diligence on the part of the driver. We think, however, that while there was no explicit testimony to that effect, there was room for the jury to infer that if the car had not been going so fast it would not have hit the dog, or that even if it had done so, the car would not have been overturned. The episode took place on a city street, and the maximum .speed allowed by law was then twelve miles an hour (Gen. Stát. 1915, § 506), as it is now. (Laws 1917, ch. 74, § 5.) There was perhaps also room for an inference that more careful or skillful driving might have avoided the collision. The plaintiff asserts that, inasmuch as the defendants were admittedly common carriers, negligence on their part was inferrable from the fact that the car was overturned. The authorities seem to bear out this application of the rule invoked (10 C. J. 1029; Notes, 5 N. C. C. A. 33, and 13 id. 255), but it is not necessary to base the decision on this phase of the matter.
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Elizabeth A. Bean-Hogan v. John J. Kloehr, Partners as Kloehr Brothers
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- SYLLABUS BY THE COURT. 1. Automobile — Negligence—Personal Injuries■ — Evidence. Evidence that while an automobile, operated by the owners in connection with their business as common carriers, was being driven on a city street at the rate of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, two dogs ran in front of it; that the driver changed his course slightly to avoid the first one; and that the car ran into the other one, causing the overturning of the car, is sufficient, in an action against the owners brought by a passenger who was thereby injured, to sustain a finding of actionable negligence on the part of the defendants. 2. Same — Verdict Not Excessive. An allowance of $1,500 for pain and suffering on account of the injuries received by the plaintiff in such a case is held not to have been so excessive as necessarily to show passion or prejudice.