Fuentes v. Ganetty
Fuentes v. Ganetty
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the conrt.
Consideration of the present case has been delayed in this conrt by the excess of work before ns, in which frequently preference has to be given to matters submitted more recently.
All of the assignments of error made by the appellant in support of the appeal refer to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment, and so it is said in the first of them that there was not sufficient justification for the finding of the court that the defendant was the owner of the jitney called Suprema Special.
Luis Fajardo testified at the trial that when he served the summons on defendant Providencia Ganetty she admitted that she was the owner of the jitney called Suprema Special.
If the court believed that testimony it was sufficient to prove that fact and to relieve the plaintiff from introducing any other kind of evidence to prove the ownership, for statements made out of court by a party are universally admissible as evidence against that party. Wigmore on Evidence, 2nd ed., vol. 2, p. 504. Babbit’s Law Applicable to Motor Vehicles, 3rd ed., p. 3309, sec. 2139. The defendant did not deny at the trial the admission attributed to her and this created a strong presumption that she made it. 10 R. C. L. 887, sec. 36. Witness Bolívar Pagán also testified in regard to the
The second ground of the appeal is that the court erred in finding that chauffeur Sixto Vargas who was driving the Suprema Special at the time of the accident was an employee of the defendant acting within the scope of his employment.
It appears to have beén proved clearly that Sixto Vargas was driving the Suprema Special as a public conveyance for passengers at the time of the accident. At the trial he testified that he was employed as chauffeur by Providencia G-anetty and although the testimony of an agent is not proof of the agency, yet such agency may be deduced from the circumstances in each case. As he was driving the public service jitney belonging then to the defendant, and as the owner was legally bound as a public carrier in the transportation of passengers in a jitney to employ a chauffeur, if the owner thereof was not driving it personally, it may be inferred therefrom that Sixto Vargas was driving the jitney as the agent of the owner (2 Corpus Juris, p. 435, par. 32)
The three following assignments of error may be considered together, as has been done by the appellant:
“Third. — The court erred in finding- that the accident- was caused by the negligence of the defendant.
“Fourth. — The court erred in finding that, such negligence was proved by a preponderance of the plaintiff’s evidence.
“Fifth.- — The court erred in finding that the plaintiff received the injury complained of by reason of the defendant’s negligence.”
In order to show how the accident occurred the plaintiff presented his own testimony, that of his attorney who was a passenger in the Puerto Eico, and that of Miguel Pujáis, another passenger in it. According to their testimony the youth Miguel Puentes was seated on the left rear side seat of the vehicle, but turned to one side and looking in front of him, and was thrown by the impact to the road whence he was taken up with the cubital bone of his left arm broken. The attorney and the other witness were seated on the cross seats of the jitney which permitted them to look ahead, and both said that the Suprema Special was approaching at great speed in a race with another automobile, and that when the Puerto Rico was getting near, driven along the right side of the road, the jitney of the defendant tried at that moment to pass the car on its left side, and that although the Puerto Eico drove to the right almost to the sidewalk, there was a collision between its rear and the front part of the other. The other witness made similar statements. The theory of the defendant, according to her witnesses consisting of the
Another assignment is that the court erred in allowing the plaintiff two thousand dollars as damages. We have said that the plaintiff had his left arm broken, but it was completely restored after being treated for forty or fifty days. It appears from the evidence that usually such a fracture causes physical sufferings and the plaintiff testified that he had them. It has been shown also that he had had to discontinue a course that he was following to graduate as a rural school teacher, which he expected to do a few months later, because he was prevented from undergoing the required practical agricultural training by reason of his broken arm. There is no evidence that he was prevented from earning any money by his broken arm, or as to his prospective
The seventh assignment of error refers to the imposition of the costs on the defendant, or at least without excluding therefrom the attorney’s fees.
Although the lower court did not state the grounds for that part of its judgment, the facts of the case show that the defendant acted with temerity in opposing the claim of the plaintiff. If that opposition had been limited to the amount of damages claimed, which was reduced by the court, the appellant then would have been in a position to argue whether or not the costs should have been imposed on her.
The eighth and last assignment of error refers to the rendition of the judgment. Clearly, it is a consequence of the other errors alleged and decided, and as the appellant merely assigned it without any argument, we shall not discuss it.
The judgment appealed from should allow one thousand dollars as damages to the plaintiff and as so modified it is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.