129 Wash. 436 | Wash. | 1924
The above entitled actions are actions for personal injuries arising out of the same accident. They were tried together in the court below, and resulted in verdicts awarding to the respondents Aletta A. Hayes and R. B. Hayes the sum of $3,500, and to the respondent Mabel A. Hayes the sum of $500. On objection made to the amount of the verdicts, the court allowed the first mentioned verdict to stand as returned by the jury. As to the second, it gave the respondent the option of taking a judgment thereon for the sum of $200 or of submitting to a new trial. The respondent accepted the first of the alternative propositions, and a judgment was thereupon entered on the first of the verdicts as it was returned, and on the second as modified. The appeal is from the judgments so entered.
The record discloses that the appellant Staples was operating an automobile stage line over a designated highway of the state, carrying passengers for hire; and that a stage driven by himself, in which the respondents, with others, were riding as passengers, left the highway, ran into a ditch on the side thereof, struck
In their actions, the respondents joined Staples and the insurance company, and the first of the errors assigned for reversal is the ruling of the trial court denying the appellants’ challenge to the complaint based on the ground of misjoinder of parties defendant. But this question we need not here specially review. Since the arguments at bar, this court has met and decided the question adversely to the contention of the appellants in the case of Devoto v. United Auto Transportation Co., 128 Wash. 604, 223 Pac. 1050, and that case may be consulted for our reasons for holding that the defendants were properly joined.
The second assignment of error, noticed in the order in which the appellants present them, questions the following instruction given by the court to the jury:
“It is admitted that the defendant Staples is a common carrier of passengers and that the stage ran off the road and turned over, and that each of the plaintiffs received some injury, but the extent of the injuries is denied. On these admissions you are justified in finding a verdict for each of the plaintiffs for damages for such injuries as she has satisfied you she has sustained, unless you believe that the accident was unavoidable, and not due to the negligence of Staples. ’ ’
But we think the instruction, as applied to the facts of the particular case, is a correct statement of the law. The rule is general that a plaintiff makes out a
The presumption of negligence arising from such proofs is not, of course, conclusive. It is open to the carrier to show that the accident was not the result of negligence, and he is always entitled to have the verdict of the trier of fact on the question when he makes such a showing. It is true, also, that he may make such a showing as will entitle him to have the question determined as matter of law, as in the cases of Topping v. Great Northern R. Co., supra, and Anderson v. Northern Pac. R. Co., 88 Wash. 139, 152 Pac. 1001. But the proof tendered to overcome the presumption arising from the facts is not thus conclusive in the case before us. The appellant testified, it is true, that the cause of the accident was the breaking of a channel lock on one of the wheels of the conveyance and the consequential coming off of the tire of the wheel. But this, if it were conclusively established, would not relieve him from liability. There remains the question
The third assignment is based on the refusal of the court to give certain requested instructions. But we think there was no error in this regard. Certain of the instructions could have been properly given in the language in which they were couched, but we have held in a long line of cases that the trial court need not follow the language of a request even where it is pertinent and couched in proper language, but may instruct
One of tbe grounds of tbe motion for a new trial was tbe statutory ground of “excessive damages appearing to bave been given under tbe influence of passion or prejudice,” and it is assigned that tbe trial court erred in not setting aside tbe verdicts on tbis ground. Concerning tbe question, counsel make tbe following argument:
“Tbe trial court believed that assignment of error was well taken by tbe defendants in their motion, as applied to Mabel A. Hayes, and so held, and plaintiff acquiesced by accepting a judgment for $200.00 instead of $500.00 as tbe jury gave her. Tbe same jurors, upon tbe same evidence, and under tbe same instructions, at tbe same time, gave plaintiff Aletta A. Hayes a verdict for $3,500.00. That it was actuated by passion and prejudice is attested by tbe trial court’s opinion as to Mabel A. Hayes, and it seems manifest that tbe jurors must bave been under tbe spell of tbe same passion and prejudice when they made tbe award to Aletta A. Hayes. ’ ’
If we do not misunderstand counsel, the contention is that tbe ruling of court refusing to approve the verdict returned in favor of Mabel A. Hayes as to its amount was necessarily based on tbe ground of passion or prejudice, and that, since it so concluded, it was its duty to set aside both verdicts in their entirety; as tbe verdicts, if affected in part with such a vice, must be held to be so affected as a whole. But it has not been our interpretation of tbe rule that tbe court must find that tbe jury was influenced by passion or prejudice before it can set aside a verdict because it deems it excessive. On tbe contrary, our holdings are
The judgments are affirmed.
Mats’, C. J., Pemberton-, Mitchell, and Bridges, JJ., concur.