301 Mass. 478 | Mass. | 1938
The plaintiff, a “sign erector,” sues for personal injuries sustained by him on Bridge Street, a “one-way” street, in Springfield, while he and his helper were loading a large sign upon a rack constructed on the top of the plaintiff's truck for the purpose of transporting such signs. The only exception is to the refusal of the judge to direct a verdict for the defendant.
At the time of the accident the plaintiff was standing on the front bumper of his truck, which was headed west in the direction of the traffic. His helper was standing near its rear end. Each was holding one end of the sign, which was twenty feet long and four feet wide. As they were holding the sign “in the air” “parallel with the truck” and “almost horizontal with the ground,” or according to some of the evidence in a tilted position, and as they were about to raise it to the rack, another truck, driven by an employee of the defendant at a speed of about five miles an hour in the same direction in which the plaintiff's truck was headed, came in contact with the rear end of the sign with the result that the plaintiff was thrown backwards from the bumper of his truck to the ground. The plaintiff admitted that his truck was “double parked,” as there was another automobile between it and the southerly curb. Such parking was in violatioñ of one or more of the city ordinances.
The plaintiff's violation of law in parking his truck did not require the direction of a verdict against him. Such violation does not preclude recovery unless it is a cause of the injury. “The position of a vehicle, which has been struck by another, may or may not have been one of the causes of the striking. Of course it could not have been struck if it had not been in the place where the blow came. But this is a statement of an essential condition, and not of a cause of the impact. The distinction is between that which directly and proximately produces, or helps to produce, a result as an efficient cause, and that which is a necessary condition or attendant circumstance of it.”
A verdict could not properly have been directed for the defendant on the ground of contributory negligence of the plaintiff. The jury could find that the loading of the sign had been begun before the defendant’s truck arrived in close proximity to the scene of the accident.
Exceptions overruled.