Home WILLIAM GRIFFIN vs. TAXI SERVICE COMPANY.

217 Mass. 293

March 26, 1914 - March 30, 1914

Suffolk County

Present: RUGG, C. J., HAMMOND, LORING, SHELDON, & CROSBY, JJ.

Negligence, In use of highway.

Where, in an action against a proprietor of taxicabs, it might have been found, upon evidence irreconcilably conflicting, that the plaintiff, being about to cross a congested city street and seeing an approaching taxi cab of the defendant from twenty to twenty-five feet away under circumstances which led him to form a judgment that there was ample time for him to pass in front of it, started for the other side of the street and was struck by the taxicab and injured, it was held, that the questions, whether the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care and whether the driver of the taxicab was negligent, were for the jury.


BY THE COURT . The evidence is irreconcilably conflicting, and from the record the defendant well might have expected a verdict in its favor. But it might have been found that at a place of great congestion of traffic [Note p293] the plaintiff, seeing an approaching taxicab of the defendant twenty to twenty-five feet away, under circumstances which led him to form a judgment that there was ample time to pass in front of it, started to cross from one side of a city street to the other and was struck and injured. Whether the plaintiff was justified in his conduct and whether the servant of the defendant was negligent were questions for the jury. Gray v. Batchelder, 208 Mass. 441. Rasmussen v. Whipple, 211 Mass. 546. Huggon v. Whipple & Co. 214 Mass. 64.

Exceptions overruled.

P. G. Carleton, for the defendant.

A. M. Burroughs, for the plaintiff, was not called upon.


FOOTNOTES

[Note p293] Blackstone Street in Boston.