261 Mass. 155 | Mass. | 1927
The several plaintiffs were injured on July 16, 1924, when they were riding in an automobile manufactured by the defendant and sold to the plaintiff Elizabeth June 22, 1923, by the Summer Street Garage in Malden. They bring
The judge was right in his rulings, since there was no sufficient evidence to justify findings that the defendant was in fault.
The evidence, taken most strongly for the plaintiffs, does not go beyond showing that the machine was purchased in June, 1923, and was injured the next day by being struck from behind by an electric street car, which might have put the machine out of alignment; that, after repair, it ran perfectly for some time except that on wet days and on rough roads "the steering wheel would go back and forth in her [[the plaintiff Elizabeth’s] hand so that the car would not always steer straight,” which she called "shimmeying”; that the machine was in storage from the middle of November of 1923 till early April of 1924, when it was overhauled and reported in good condition; that in April it broke down from trouble in the rear casing and in May was examined, the rear housing taken down, new gears substituted, and the steering apparatus repaired by putting in a new Pitman arm and gear; that in June the plaintiff Elizabeth drove it against a sign post and the Pitman arm fell out of the casing at the drag fink; that the repair man examined the ball and socket joint and said it was all right; that it ran better on trips taken thereafter till, on the trip of July 16, in descending the hill in Townsend the plaintiff Elizabeth found she had no control and, though she used her brake, it struck an object which wrecked the forward end; that the ball at the end of the Pitman arm was out of the housing in the drag link, the housing showed signs of wear and was open so that
On such evidence it is only by conjecture and not by fair inference based upon proven facts that any negligence of the defendant or of any one for whom it was responsible can be found to have existed. That is not enough. See Morris v. Weene, 258 Mass. 178. Traverse v. Wing, 260 Mass. 527. Bigwood v. Boston & Northern Street Railway, 209 Mass. 345.
Judgment on the verdicts.