Barrows v. Checker Taxi Co‪.‬

RUGG, Chief Justice. This is an action of tort wherein the plaintiff seeks to recover compensation for personal injuries alleged to have been received by her, while being transported on a public way as a passenger in one of the taxicabs of the defendant, through the negligence of its driver by collision with another automobile owned by one Grandin. The accident occurred at the intersection of busy streets in Boston at about eight o'clock of a sleety February evening when snow was also falling. The case was referred to an auditor under an agreement that his findings of fact should be final. The report of the auditor was favorable to the plaintiff upon all points and there was a finding of substantial damages. Appended to the report are seven objections by the defendant. The defendant filed a motion to recommit the case to the auditor. The plaintiff filed a motion for judgment in accordance with the auditor's report. The trial Judge denied the motion to recommit the auditor's report, overruled the defendant's objections to that report, made a finding in favor of the plaintiff, and allowed the plaintiff's motion for judgment in her favor on that report, all subject to the defendant's exceptions. The facts found by the auditor are that the taxicab in which the plaintiff was a passenger had been traveling along Dartmouth Street toward the north and started to cross Huntington Avenue, a highly traveled way, at the rate of about twenty-five miles per hour under most unfavorable weather conditions. The Grandin automobile coming from the east stopped on its right side of Huntington Avenue before crossing Dartmouth Street. When the road was clear, the driver of that automobile started in first speed and went into second speed shortly after. Before he had an opportunity to go into third speed, the taxicab of the defendant coming from his left collided with the front of his automobile when well into the medial line of Dartmouth Street. The auditor found without commenting on all the testimony, that it was a negligent operation of the taxicab to proceed across Huntington Avenue at the speed of twenty-five miles per hour and that there was ample opportunity for it to proceed behind the Grandin automobile and thus avoid collision, that the Grandin automobile had started to cross Dartmouth Street before the taxicab had reached the intersection of the two ways and that the accident was caused solely by the negligence of the driver of the taxicab, and that the driver of the Grandin automobile was reasonably prudent. While the impact of the collision was not severe, nor sufficient to stop either motor vehicle, the plaintiff was thrown to the floor of the taxicab and received injuries which at that time rendered her in a dazed condition and disabled her for a considerable period thereafter.