Sadak v. Tucker (Two Cases‪)‬

COX, Justice. The first action is one of tort in which the minor plaintiff, hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff, who was eleven years of age at the time of his injuries, seeks to recover damages for those injuries sustained on Springfield Street, a public way in the town of Agawam, when he was struck by an automobile owned and operated by the defendant, and the second action is by the plaintiff's father to recover consequential damages. The cases were tried to a jury upon the report of an auditor and other evidence. Rule 88 of the Superior Court (1932). Verdicts were returned for the plaintiffs. The denial of the defendant's motion for a directed verdict in each case presents the only exceptions. The jury could have found that the street, which ran east and west, was at least forty feet wide, that it had a macadam surface twenty feet in width, and that there was a single trolley track, the northerly rail of which was about two feet from the southerly edge of the macadam. The defendant was travelling east on the macadam at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour, at about a quarter to five in the afternoon on December 15, 1933, when his automobile collided with the plaintiff. It was dusk, the highway was icy, and a soft sleet was falling which froze as it struck the windshield of the defendant's automobile so that he had a limited vision ahead of about seventy-five feet. The first inkling he had that anything was wrong was when he heard a metallic sound, which was caused when the automobile struck the sled that the plaintiff was dragging behind him, but at no time did he feel any impact. He proceeded twenty-five to thirty feet before applying his brakes and stopped in about ten feet, with the left wheels of his automobile on the macadam, and the right wheels about six inches from the southerly rail of the track. The plaintiff was found lying on his back under the left side of the front axle of the automobile about eight inches from the left front wheel, and so wedged beneath the axle that the left front wheel had to be lifted before he could be removed. His principal injury was a fractured skull due to a severe blow on the back of his head. There were contusions and lacerations about the head, but there were no marks or lacerations on his lower extremities. The only damage to the defendant's automobile was that its right front headlight was broken and the left light pushed back. There were no other marks visible on the automobile. From the top of a hill, about six hundred and thirty feet west of the point of collision, the street slopes to the east. Although there was evidence of varying percentages of this grade or slope, it could have been found that for a distance of about two hundred feet west of the point of contact the slope is so gradual that the grade is scarcely perceptible.