Citation Numbers: 88 Pa. Super. 377
Judges: OPINION BY HENDERSON, J., July 8, 1926:
Filed Date: 4/27/1926
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/13/2023
Argued April 27, 1926.
The plaintiff, a boy fourteen years of age, was struck by an automobile driven by the defendants on the Freeport *Page 379
Road in the Village of Harmerville. The accident occurred at or near the intersection of that road with the Guys Run Road. An interurban street car, northward bound on a track substantially parallel with the Freeport Road, stopped at the Guys Run Road intersection; the front part of the car being on that road. The plaintiff, intending to cross the Freeport Road, waited until the car had started and "walked in back of it about three feet away and looked down the road." He then stepped from the trolley track on to the pavement and was immediately struck. The automobile was moving southwardly and the plaintiff's view of it was obstructed by the trolley car. The negligence charged against the defendants was that they were driving at an excessive rate of speed and on the left hand side of the road near the line of the trolley car. A verdict having been rendered in favor of the plaintiff, a rule was entered for judgment n.o.v. for the defendants, on the ground that the plaintiff was negligent in walking in front of the automobile before he had an opportunity to look for vehicles moving southwardly on the highway. This rule was made absolute, the court being of the opinion that the plaintiff could not recover because of his negligence. It is clear from the plaintiff's testimony that when he was behind the street car as it started he had no view to his right up the Freeport Road because of the car. It is also clear that if he had looked northwardly at the time when he stepped on to the street, he could have observed the automobile and have avoided the injury. It was unnecessary on his part to expose his whole body to obtain a view of its approach. The evidence leaves no room for doubt that he stepped out onto the street after the trolley car was in motion, and so soon after it moved that he could not tell whether there were vehicles on the highway or not. It is the duty of one crossing a public highway to look and listen to ascertain *Page 380
whether vehicles are approaching and to be alert after he starts on the street: Lorah v. Rinehart,
The assignments are overruled and the judgment affirmed.