Baltimore Transit Co. v. Putnam

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The accident involved in this case occurred on September 14, 1962, at 5 :45 p.m. during daylight hours on a clear day when the streets were dry in Baltimore City at the intersection of Paca and Saratoga Streets. The plaintiff-appellee, Walter C. Putnam, was operating his vehicle, a 1962 Plymouth, in a northerly direction in the east curb lane of Paca Street when it was struck from the side by a bus owned by the defendant-appellant, Baltimore Transit Company, and operated by the defendant-appellant, Alfred W. Thornton, Jr., which was traveling in an easterly direction in the south curb lane of Saratoga Street. ²¹ At the intersection where the accident occurred, Paca is a one-way street northbound having five lanes, each of which are ten feet wide, and Saratoga is a two-way east-west street accommodating two lanes of traffic in each direction. The point of impact was four feet north of the south curb line of Saratoga Street and eight feet west of the east curb line of Paca Street.

This is a signal controlled intersection with an overhead hanging signal located over the approximate center of the intersection. Suit was originally filed in the Baltimore City Court to recover damages sustained by the plaintiff resulting from both personal injury and property damage sustained by him, but on motion of the defendant, Baltimore Transit Company, the case was removed to the Superior Court of Baltimore City and the trial was conducted in that court. At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s evidence the defendants moved for directed verdicts, which were denied. These motions were renewed at the conclusion of all of the evidence and were again denied and the case was submitted to the jury, which rendered a verdict in the amount of $7,500 in favor of the plaintiff to his own use and to the use of Calvert Fire Insurance Company, which had paid a portion of the damages sustained by the plaintiff under a policy of insurance issued on the plaintiff’s vehicle.

Subsequently, the defendants duly filed motions for judgments n.o.v. or, in the alternative, for a new trial, which motions were denied and judgment absolute was entered for the plaintiff on May 5, 1967. The first of the appellants’ contentions that must be considered is that the testimony of William F. Hagenbucher should have been stricken from the record because it was “too vague, indefinite, speculative and evasive to constitute a basis from which the jury could arrive at a rational conclusion.” In support of this proposition they point out certain discrepancies in the testimony of the witness which vary from the facts as they existed at the time of the accident. They also point to the fact that a number of times while he was being examined and cross-examined the witness stated that he did not remember certain details of the accident. At one point Mr. Hagenbucher was not clear as to the location of the signals controlling the intersec ²² tion.

At another point, he testified that the bus was yellow when it was actually green, and at a third point he stated that the appellee’s car was in the lane next to the curb lane rather than in the east curb lane. Although these statements were not strictly accurate the errors that were present were not material and neither added to nor subtracted from the cases of either of the appellants or the appellee. Further, it must be remembered that approximately four years had elapsed from the time of the accident to the time that the witness was called to testify. The appellants had ample opportunity at trial to impeach the witness and taking into consideration the nature of the discrepancies and period of time that had elapsed between the happening of the accident and the trial, we conclude that Judge Prendergast was correct in refusing the motion to strike the testimony of the witness and in allowing it to be considered by the jury which had the opportunity of observing the witness testify and to judge his credibility.

The appellants argue strongly that the trial judge erred in not directing verdicts in their favor or in not granting their subsequent motions for judgments n.o.v. for the reasons that the appellants were not primarily negligent, and also that the appellee was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. The bases for this argument are the