This is an action brought under section 377, Code of Civil Procedure, for damages on account of a death resulting from an automobile collision.
About 10:30 P. M. on December 19,1936, the defendant McDowell was driving south from Bakersfield on U. S. Highway 99 in a truck and trailer owned by his employer, the defendant Powell. The trailer was loaded with chickens, piled four crates high. At a point some eighteen miles south of Bakersfield one of the wheels of the trailer came off and McDowell parked the outfit with a part of the trailer extending upon the paved portion of the highway. About forty minutes later the defendant Nier came along in a Packard car, traveling south. He did not see the parked trailer until he was close to it and then swerved to his left and ran head on into a Ford automobile, in which a Mr. and Mrs. Hines were riding, which was traveling north on the east half of the highway. Hines and his wife both died as a result of the collision.
Mr. and Mrs. Hines had been married for only six months. Mrs. Hines had formerly been married to a man named Williams, from whom she had been divorced about ten years. The plaintiff is the daughter of Mrs. Hines by the former marriage. She was thirteen years old at the time her mother was killed and her mother was thirty-three. She brought this action against the owner and driver of the truck and trailer and the driver of the Packard car. On December 17, 1937, before the trial of the action, she was married to a man named Miller. The court found that all three defendants were guilty of negligence and that as a proximate result of the negligence of all three Mrs. Hines received the injury which caused her death. Judgment for $2,500 was entered against all three defendants and the defendants McDowell and Powell have appealed.
It is first contended that the findings are insufficient to support the judgment against the appellants. It is argued that there is nothing in the findings which connects the manner in which the appellants’ car was parked with the fact that the Nier car collided with the Hines ear, and that it is not specifically found that the way in which the appellants’ car was parked had anything to do with the Nier car being on the wrong side of the road. The complaint alleged that the appellants negligently drove, operated and parked their truck and trailer on the highway at a certain time and place and
*52
that at that time and place the defendant Nier negligently and carelessly drove and operated his automobile onto ánd against the car in which Mrs. Hines was riding, and that as a proximate result of the negligent acts and conduct of all three defendants at this time and place, Mrs. Hines received injuries which caused her death. The court is required only to find those ultimate facts which are necessary to support the judgment on the essential issues presented by the pleadings.
(Forman
v.
Hancock,
3 Cal. App. (2d) 291 [
It is next contended that the damages awarded the plaintiff are excessive and not supported by the evidence. It is argued that since the plaintiff was married about a year after her mother was killed the duty of supporting her would thereafter fall upon her husband; that the only pecuniary loss which she could have sustained would have been support for one year; that any such support would necessarily have been very meager since Mr. Hines was employed as a “bell hop” in a Los Angeles hotel; and that his income must have been very meager as the evidence shows he was contributing $25 or $30 a month to the support of his mother.
There is no evidence as to the amount of Hines’ income. Some “bell hops” earn very substantial sums. We are not advised as to whether Mrs. Hines had any income other than what she received from her husband. There is evidence that the plaintiff had lived with her mother up to the time of the accident. She was then visiting her father in Corcoran and the Hineses were on their way to take her back to Los Angeles, where she had lived with her mother. She lost the support which she would otherwise have received in the home of her mother for the period of a year and until the time of her marriage. The value of this support was a question of fact *53 for the court and, from the evidence before us, it could not be held unreasonable or excessive if the court valued this support at $1200.
A further element of pecuniary loss suffered by the respondent is to be found in the fact that she was deprived of the comfort, society and protection of her mother. Under well-settled rules this element of damage in the case of a thirteen-year-old girl is a substantial one which should not be disregarded and, contrary to appellants’ contentions, is one which may continue even after her marriage. Section 377 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that in every action brought thereunder, 11 such damages may be given as under all the circumstances of the case, may be just”. It is well settled that in the determination of the amount of damages in such cases much is left to the sound discretion of the jury or of the trial court, and that their finding in that regard will be reversed only where the amount fixed is obviously so disproportionate to the injury involved as to justify the conclusion that the verdict or judgment is the result of passion or prejudice.
(Diller
v.
Northern Cal. Power Co.,
“In support of the appellant’s contention that the verdict of the jury was excessive, he directs our attention to certain evidence tending to show that the deceased was a man of dissolute and unthrifty habits, and was not a very useful member of society or supporter of his family. These were matters properly submitted to the jury, and doubtless considered by them in arriving at the amount of their verdict. We are unable to say that a verdict in the sum of two thousand dollars for the death of a human being, through the negligence of another under the circumstances detailed in this case, was so excessive as to justify the conclusion that the jury were moved by undue passion or prejudice in its rendition or amount.”
*55 In the light of these established rules, we cannot say that this judgment is so plainly excessive as to suggest at first blush passion or prejudice on the part of the court. Although a part of the judgment is based upon the loss of the comfort, society and protection of the mother it cannot be held that that element of damage is unsubstantial in the case of a thirteen-year-old girl. The contrary is suggested by the very fact relied upon by the appellants as limiting their liability, the marriage of the girl a year later when she was but fourteen years old. Such a marriage might not have been necessary or might not have occurred had she not been deprived of the comfort, society and protection of her mother.
The last point raised is that the court’s finding, that the negligence of the appellants was a proximate cause of the accident, is not supported by the evidence. The appellants rely on a portion of the evidence to the effect that their truck was parked on the extreme west side of the paved highway, and argue that the defendant Nier should have been able to see their truck and trailer and that the accident occurred solely because of his negligence. However, there is evidence that although the paved portion of the highway was twenty feet wide the left rear wheel of the trailer was but seventy-five inches west of the center stripe. There is also evidence that the driver of appellants’ truck violated section 590 of the California Vehicle Code, as it then read, which required that every truck or commercial vehicle should under such conditions be equipped with at least two flares or two red lanterns or two warning lights, and that a signal of that character should be immediately placed approximately 200 feet to the rear of the disabled vehicle. There can be no question that the appellants were guilty of negligence, and the question whether this negligence was a proximate cause of the accident was one of fact, and the evidence supports the court’s finding in that regard.
The judgment is affirmed.
Marks, J., and Griffin, J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing of this cause was denied by the District Court of Appeal on April 27, 1939, and an application by appellants to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on May 29, 1939,