183 Pa. Super. 558 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1957
Opinion by
In this action plaintiff, Daniel F. Waters, the owner of an automobile involved in an intersection collision with the car of the defendant, sought recovery of the cost of repairing the damage to his car. Plaintiffs car was driven by his son John O. B. Waters, who was brought into the action as an additional defendant. It was agreed that the cost of the repairs was $786.52 and the jury found for the plaintiff in that amount, against both the original and the additional defendants. On motion of defendant Beaty, the lower court set aside the verdict and granted a new trial applicable to all issues among the parties. The plaintiff and the additional defendant have appealed from that order.
On the plaintiff’s side of the case the additional defendant, the driver of plaintiff’s car, took the stand but he did not remember the color of the traffic signals as he entered the intersection nor any other of the circumstances. In fact he didn’t realize he had been in an accident until he woke up in a hospital the next day. The defendant Beaty had filed his complaint against the additional defendant claiming $693.77 as the necessary cost of repairs to his car. And the only evidence in the record as to the circumstances attending the collision is the testimony of Beaty and his witnesses. The facts developed by this testimony, if credible are open to only one interpretation.
In the early evening of May 24, 1952, on his way home from his work the defendant Beaty was driving his automobile northwardly on Forty-fifth Street in Philadelphia. Forty-fifth Street is a two-way street 31 feet wide, with fifteen-foot sidewalks. Chestnut Street is a one-way street, eastbound, 18 feet in width with sidewalks 21 feet wide. Traffic at the intersection of these two streets is controlled by signal lights
An order awarding a new trial will not be reversed unless palpable abuse of discretion by the trial judge appears. And “One of the least assailable grounds for the exercise of such power [to grant a new trial] is the trial court’s conclusion [as here] that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence and that the interests of justice therefore require that a new trial be awarded”: Bellettiere v. Philadelphia, 367 Pa. 638, 81 A. 2d 857; Harris v. Ruggles Lumber Co., 376 Pa. 252, 101 A. 2d 917. There was no abuse of discretion in the grant of a new trial in the present case.
Order affirmed.