Donovan v. Bernhard

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Donovan v. Bernhard, 208 Mass. 181 (Mass. 1911)
94 N.E. 276; 1911 Mass. LEXIS 782
Knowlton

Donovan v. Bernhard

Opinion of the Court

Knowlton, C. J.

This is an action to recover damages for being struck and run over by a horse and wagon, while the plaintiff was passing over a crosswalk on Tremont Street, at a point near its junction with Huntington Avenue in Boston. The plaintiff’s exception is to an order of the presiding judge * that a verdict be returned for the defendant. There was evidence tending to show that the defendant’s servant, the driver of the horse, was guilty of negligence. The jury might have found that the horse was being driven rapidly, and that the driver was inattentive to his duty.

C. W. Bond, for the plaintiff. R. Spring, for the defendant.

The cases in which it has been held that a plaintiff, who was injured while crossing a street without observing or avoiding an approaching team, showed no evidence of due care, have been for the most part where, from the crowded condition of the streets, or the running of electric cars, or other causes, special care was necessary. Most of them have been actions against street railways, where the risk from an approaching car is ordinarily much greater than that from a .horse and carriage. In many of them the plaintiff knew facts or saw objects which put upon him a special duty to take some precaution which he neglected. See Blackwell v. Old Colony Street Railway, 193 Mass. 222; Holian v. Boston Elevated Railway, 194 Mass. 74; Fitzgerald v. Boston Elevated Railway, 194 Mass. 242; Casey v. Boston Elevated Railway, 197 Mass. 440; Russo v. Charles S. Brown Co.. 198 Mass. 473; Smith v. Boston Elevated Railway, 202 Mass. 489. In the present case, while the plaintiff looked out and saw a car approaching in the street at his right hand, there is nothing to show that there was anything on his left of such appearance, or so near him, as to make it negligence, as a matter of law, for him to fail to take precautions against it.

Exceptions sustained.

White, J.

Reference

Full Case Name
Bartholomew Donovan v. Daniel Bernhard
Cited By
16 cases
Status
Published