8 La. App. 323 | La. Ct. App. | 1928
Aymar David, a salesman for plaintiff, had parked a Ford car near a store on the right side of the public highway which runs between Iberia and Lafayette. A bus belonging to defendant company, driven by Latina, an employee of defendant, ran into the Ford car causing damages thereto, for the recovery of which this suit is brought. The demand was denied. Plaintiff appeals.
The bus was going westward from New Iberia to Lafayette, and collided with an auto belonging to Eddy Freeman near Burke Station, about five miles west of New Iberia. The bus wás traveling at about twenty or twenty-seven miles an hour, the usual speed at which these transfers travel on their regular daily trips between the two cities. There is a double railroad track at Burke Station that runs east and west on parallel lines with the public highway on which the bus was traveling. This highway is twenty-four feet wide. The distance between the railroad rails, and the highway is thirty-five feet, with an incline of about thirty inches drop.
The Freeman auto which was being driven by Mrs. Freeman was coming towards the highway in a road leading from the west. Mrs. Freeman was not a witness in the case so that we have hot the- benefit of her testimony. Her husband says he saw the buit when it was coming towards the crossing, yelled to his wife and said: “Oh, Lord, the transfer is coming.” Oppenheimer, a passenger on the bus says the Freeman car came shooting from the railroad, and “right down in front of us.”
It is evident that the Freeman car was coming at a lively clip and' that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Freeman saw the bus. There is nothing to indicate they could not have seen it if they had cast a glance in the direction from which it was coming. Freeman says he grabbed the wheel of his auto thinking he could help his wife, and to save his life. This statement was made in his original examination; and in rebuttal he said he could not put the brakes on. It is shown that with fairly good brakes a car can be stopped on the incline between the railroad track and the highway.
The Freemans were negligent and at fault, not the bus driver. There was no act either of omission or commission of the bus driver that was the proximate cause of the damage and defendant company was properly absolved of liability. State vs. Williams, 49 La. Ann. 1148, 22 So. 759.