323 Mass. 550 | Mass. | 1949
This is an action of tort for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while riding as a guest in an automobile operated by the defendant on Waverley Street in Framingham on January 16, 1944. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff and the case is here on her exception to the entering of a verdict for the defendant under leave reserved.
There was evidence that the accident in which the plaintiff was injured occurred about 5 a.m. The plaintiff was sitting on the rear seat of the automobile with a young man, and a girl friend of hers was sitting on the front seat with the
It was permissible to find that the collision with the post was caused by a combination of excessive speed and a defective mechanism or by either one of these factors alone. There was evidence that the plaintiff, by continuing to ride in the automobile for a period of six hours with opportunity to alight, had acquiesced in the defendant’s manner
Nor could it have been ruled that the conduct of the plaintiff as matter of law contributed to cause her injuries. The decisions in Laffey v. Mullen, 275 Mass. 277, and Curley v. Mahan, 288 Mass. 369, to which reference is made in the plaintiff’s brief, are not controlling authority here on the issue of contributory negligence. See McGaffigan v. Kennedy, 302 Mass. 12, 17.
In our opinion it was error for the judge to enter a verdict for the defendant.
Exceptions sustained.