185 Ind. 163 | Ind. | 1916
— Tbis appeal is from a judgment in tbe court below in favor of appellee for damages for personal injury alleged to bave been sustained by bim through tbe negligence of appellant in driving bis automobile on Main street in tbe city of Evansville whereby a collision with appellee, who was also using tbe street as tbe rider of a motorcycle, was caused. Tbe issue formed by an answer of general
Two rulings of the trial court áre assigned as errors, which are relied on for reversal: Overruling appellant’s motion for venire de novo, and overruling his motion for a new trial.
Appellant claims that he was driving his automobile at a moderate rate of speed and that appellee, riding his motorcycle at a very rapid rate of speéd,ran it into appellant’s vehicle and caused his own injuries. This contention is supported only as we have indicated above. In support of the verdict the evi
Instructions Nos. 4 and 6, requested by appellee and given by the court, were excepted to as erroneous statements of the law. The giving of them was
“No. 4. What is commonly known as ‘the law of the road’ requires conveyances traveling on a public street or highway in Indiana, or meeting another vehicle on the same street or highway, to keep to the right of the traveled portion of the road. A traveler driving a vehicle along a public street has a right to presume that one whom he sees approaching from the opposite direction will keep to the right of the traveled portion of the road, and will not be precluded from recovering damages sustained by him in a collision resulting from the other’s want of care and skill, merely because when first seeing the approaching traveler the injured party had ample space to pass in safety.
“No. 6. If you find, from the preponderance of the evidence, that the plaintiff, Elbert Hodgkins, was riding his motorcycle properly and with due care along that side of Main Street which • was on his right-hand side and was so proceeding on said Main Street over its intersection with Fifth Street’; and that, at the same time, the defendant was driving his automobile along said Main Street in the opposite direction to that in which plaintiff was traveling, then I instruct you that under such circumstances the plaintiff had the right to assume that defendant would keep to his right in meeting and passing the plaintiff; and that if he had occasion to turn his automobile out of said Main Street into said Fifth Street at said intersection thereof, he would so turn into said Fifth Street to the right side as he passed the plaintiff.”
Reliance is also placed on the trial court’s refusal to give two instructions requested by appellant which stated the law contrary to that stated in the two instructions given and set out above, and which were otherwise fundamentally erroneous. No error was committed by the court in-refusing to give them to the jury.
Complaint is finally made of instruction No. 10, given by the court, which reads as follows: “If you find, for the plaintiff herein and that he is entitled to recover, it will be your duty to assess his damages in such an amount as will fairly compensate him for the injuries sustained as charged in the complaint (our italics), if any, and in arriving at this amount you may take into account the amount of pain and suffering, both physical and mental, which he has already endured, if any, by reason of his said injuries; also you may consider his crippled and maimed condition if you find it to exist and probable duration of his life and the loss of time from work, if any, caused by his said injury and diminution in his earning capacity occasioned by such injury, if any, and from all the
Appellant’s motion for a venire de novo was on the ground that the verdict was so,indefinite and uncertain that the court could not render proper judgment thereon. ■ The verdict as returned is as follows: “We, the jury, find for the plaintiff and assess the damages in the sum of $2,200.00; defendant to assume expenses of his service to date, also all expenses of plaintiff incurred at the Deaconess Hospital during the plaintiff’s treatment.”
There being no error in the rulings of the trial court pointed out in the briefs, judgment is affirmed.
Spencer, J., not participating.
Note. — Reported in 112 N. E. 386. Rights and duties of persons driving automobiles in highways (13 Ann. Cas. 463; 21 Ann. Cas. 648) in respect to persons on bicycles, 21 Ann. Cas. 656.