Everitt v. Auchu
Everitt v. Auchu
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff’s action arose out of the collision of the defendant’s automobile with his team on á public highway leading from Lewisburg to Mifflinburg in Union County. The plaintiff was driving from his house along a lane to the road and his wagon was struck while he was in the act of attempting to get out of the way of the automobile.- There was conflicting evidence as to the speed of the car. The evidence of the plaintiff would have permitted the jury to find it was running fifty miles an hour. The defendant’s evidence was to the effect that it was moving slowly and was carefully controlled and that .the plaintiff was negligent in the management of his team to which negligence his injury was attributable. If the defendant was proceeding with the rapidity stated by the plaintiff’s witnesses he was violating a statute of the Commonwealth. The Act of July 7, 1913, prohibits any person from operating a motor vehicle on the public highway of the State at a rate of speed greater than is reasonable and proper having due regard to the width, traffic and use of the highway or so as to endanger property or the life or limb of any person, or at a speed exceeding one mile in two and one-half minutes. The jury having found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff we may assume that the evidence offered in support of the action with respect to the defendant’s conduct was credited. That amounted to a finding therefore that the defendant was engaged in an unlawful act which produced the injury complained of. It is earnestly contended on behalf of the appellant that the preponderance of evidence supported the appellant’s contention that he was proceeding at a moderate and reasonable speed and that the accident occurred wholly through the carelessness of the plaintiff, but the matter of the weight of the evidence and of the credibility of the witnesses was for the jury. The jury evidently considered the weight of the evidence to favor the plaintiff’s claim. The learned trial judge who heard the witnesses and who was familiar with all the
The testimony relating to the location of the plaintiff’s team at the time he first saw the automobile and of his movements thereafter was contradictory. Whether when he saw the automobile he should have stopped to avoid the risk of a collision or could with prudence have undertaken to cross the road was a question of the exercise of a reasonable care under the circumstances which is always one for the consideration of the jury except in very clear cases. We cannot declare as a matter of law that it was an act of negligence on his part to drive into the highway from the lane when at the time his horses were at the side of the road the car was two hundred and fifty feet away. We consider the case one for the jury for the determination. of the facts involved. The first and second assignments of error cannot therefore be sustained.
The third assignment, to use the language of the learned counsel for the appellant, “raises the question as to whether under the law of the road in Pennsylvania a traveler passing along a State or public highway, with a large automobile as in the case at bar*, has the right of way, and whether one about to enter in or upon the said highway, from a private lane, with a team and wagon, at a point where there is no cross road intersection, must give way to the traveler already on the highway.” This is said to be the main question involved in the case and it is urged that the cofirts of the Commonwealth should adopt a rule unbending and absolute as a measure of public policy for the protection of travelers on the public highways that the same degree of care in crossing on main and much-traveled highways be exercised as in
The judgment is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.