Thе plaintiff corporation was the insurer of the Los Angeles Daily Express Company upon its liability to its employees under the workmen’s compensation law, and brought this action to recover from the defendant Pacific Electric Railway Company, for damages caused by the collision of one of the latter’s electric street-cars with a motortruck of the Express Company, on which one George L. Makley was riding, and which was driven by a fellow-workman, Penn Hart. Both of these men were employees of the Express Company. Makley was thrown frоm the motor ear by the collision and had both legs cut off by the electric car. The plaintiff company, having paid the compensation allowed Makley under the workmen’s compensation law, is maintaining this action under its subrogated claim against the Electric Railway Company.
The collision took place in Hollywood, in the city of Los Angeles, at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard, which runs approximately east and west, and Wilton Place, a street running north and south. The motortruck was proceeding toward the south on Wilton Placе and the electric car was going toward the east on the south track of the Electric Company’s double-track railway on Hollywood Boulevard. The verdict *575 of the jury was in favor of the plaintiff, and awarded damages in the sum of eight thousand dollars. Defendant’s motion for a nеw trial was denied, and the appeal is from the judgment upon the judgment-roll and a bill of exceptions. The grounds relied on are insufficiency of the evidence and alleged errors of the court in giving and refusing instructions.
The main contention made by appellant is that the evidenсe establishes contributory negligence. It does not seem to be disputed that the evidence was sufficient 'to justify the jury in finding that the defendant’s motorman was guilty of negligence in driving his car at an excessive and unlawful rate of speed. The speed limit at the place of the accident, under the traffic ordinance of the city of Los Angeles, was twenty miles per hour. It was testified by a number of witnesses that the defendant’s car approached the scene of the accident at a rate variously estimated at from thirty to forty miles per hour. The issue аs to liability for damages, therefore, hangs on the question of contributory negligence.
There may be eliminated from this consideration the manner of the approach of the motortruck to the street intersection. The evidence sufficiently discloses that after entering the street intersection both the driver and Makley saw the approaching electric car, and that the motortruck was slowed down and under sufficient control so that it could have been stopped before reaching the track on which the electric car was approaching. The driver of the motortruck and Makley claim that at this point, where they could have stopped in safety, they saw the electric car approaching, at a distance of about two hundred feet, at what appeared to them to be а reasonable rate of speed. They were then going at about eight miles per hour, and were about twenty feet from the car track on which the electric car was approaching. The driver speeded up his motor and attempted to cross in front of the electric car. Then the collision occurred. Makley, testifying as to conditions just as they attempted to cross the ear tracks, says: “I then looked to the west. When I looked to the west I saw a car about two hundred feet down the track toward Taft Street. I supposed this car was running at a reasonable rate of speed. I saw the ear, of course, and it appeared to be coming at a reasonable rate of speed. It looked that way to me. I continued on *576 across the boulevard. . . . When we got to the west-bound track I sаw that it was coming at a high rate of speed, and I raised to jump from the truck, and before I could do so the front of the car struck on the front part of the truck and knocked it from under my feet.” The testimony of Fenn Hart, the driver of .the truck, as to the situation at this juncture, was as follows: “My autotruck at the time I first observed the car that collided with us—the front end of the truck was possibly eight or ten feet from the north rail of the north track; that would put me somewhere around fifteen feet where I was sitting in the ear back from the north rail of the north track. . . . When I saw the car it was close to Taft Street. I couldn’t say how far Taft is, but it. is the first street west—it is a block. I couldn’t tell how fast the car was moving, but it seemed to be traveling at a reasonable rate of speed. I was going about eight or ten miles an hour at the time; the front end of the automobile truck was еight or ten feet from the first track. I was watching this car practically all the time. When I was north of the north track, possibly eight or ten feet—something like that—I opened up the throttle. When the front end of my truck was between the two tracks, more to the south than the north, I saw that I didn’t have time to get across in front of it, and I tried to stop. One of my front wheels passed over the north rail of the south track, and then was when the collision happened. Just before it collided with me I saw it was traveling at least thirty-five miles per hour.”
It was shown in evidence that the width between the rаils of each of the car tracks was five feet, and the distance between the south rail of the north track and the north rail of the south track was seven feet. Starting with the front of the ear ten feet north of the first track, the motortruck had probably thirty feet to go, besides its own lеngth, before it would clear the approaching electric car. Fifty feet would cover the entire distance, as testified to by these witnesses. As they there saw the situation, the electric car was two hundred feet or more distant, approaching at what they suppоsed was a “reasonable rate of speed.” Under the city ordinance that rate might not lawfully exceed twenty miles per hour. If the autotruck’s accelerated speed reached even ten miles per hour, the driver of the motortruck could clear *577 the tracks while the electric ear at twenty miles per hour covered one hundred feet of the intervening space. Of course, there can be no such mathematical accuracy of calculation in such a ease, but this estimate would still leave another hundred feеt as a margin of safety. They took the chances. Was it negligence, as a matter of law? Or was the jury entitled to determine the question of negligence as one of fact, in view of the conditions shown by the testimony?
No useful purpose would be served by discussing аll of appellant’s exceptions to the rulings of the court in granting and refusing instructions. We are satisfied that the instructions fairly covered all the matters necessary to a correct understanding by the jury of the law of the ease. Some of the instructions refused correctly stated the law, but upon points sufficiently covered by the instructions given. It was, for instance, sufficiently pointed out that Makley owed a duty to look out for himself in crossing the car tracks, and might not blindly rely on the driver; and that neither of them could shut their eyes to the dangers from approaching cars, and rest secure in the assumption that the electric ears would approach the crossings in a careful and prudent manner. There was no necessity for the instructions offered and refused relating to the effect of negligence of the Commonwealth Bonding Comрany and the Los Angeles Daily Express on the right of plaintiff to recover, from the fact that their only connection with the events of the accident was through the agency of the men in charge of the motortruck; and it was sufficiently pointed out that contributory negligence on their part would defeat a recovery by plaintiff.
The judgment is affirmed.
Finlayson, P. J., and Thomas, J., concurred.