Savin v. Block

RUGG, Chief Justice. This is an action of tort to recover compensation for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while riding as a guest in an automobile owned and operated by the defendant. In order to prevail, the plaintiff must prove that her injuries were caused by the gross negligence of the defendant, Massaletti v. Fitzroy, 228 Mass. 487, 118 N.E. 168, L.R.A.1918C, 264, Ann.Cas.1918B, 1088. The case was heard by an auditor under Rule 88 of the Superior Court (1932). The auditor embodied in his report in substance these findings of fact: The accident occurred at about half past ten oclock on an August evening in 1932, on a street in Newton in this Commonwealth. The plaintiff and defendant had visited a park. When they started away the defendant was in an angry mood. The night was dark. It was raining hard. The road was wet. Upon reaching Commonwealth Avenue, which in that vicinity was neither level nor straight, the defendant drove at a high rate of speed. The plaintiff became alarmed and repeatedly asked the defendant to lessen his speed, which he did not do. The defendant approached an S curve without lessening his speed of about fifty miles per hour. The automobile left the road, jumped a granite curbstone which it knocked out of place, struck a tree and tipped over, finally coming to rest facing in the direction from which it had come. The automobile was an old machine, was defective as to brakes and there was a shimmy in the front wheel, which conditions were known to the defendant. The finding was that the defendants conduct constituted gross negligence on his part, and that the plaintiff was not in any respect contributorily negligent.