County Commissioners v. Beulah

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. A former appeal in this case resulted in a reversal of the judgment upon the verdict of a jury awarding damages to the infant plaintiff for personal injuries sustained when the .automobile in which she was riding at night with her parents collided with a tree lying across the highway. The case was remanded for a retrial, and jt is now in this court on appeal from a second judgment in the plaintiff’s favor. The earlier judgment was reversed because the rulings of the trial court on the prayers proceeded upon the theory that a verdict for the plaintiff, who was only six months old at the time of the .accident, would be legally permissible even if her father failed ⁶⁸² to exercise ordinary care to avoid the collision.

Caroline County v. Beulah, 153 Md. 221 . At the retrial of the case an instruction was proposed, and granted, on behalf of the plaintiff, to the effect that if the-jury should find from the evidence that a large tree had been permitted to remain across the public road in such manner as greatly to obstruct, inconvenience, and endanger the public in driving along or over the road, and that the defendant, or-its proper agents, had notice, or might by care and diligence-have obtained notice, of the obstruction in time to remove it or safeguard the public against it before the accident complained of, and that the infant plaintiff was riding along the road with her father, who drove against the tree, while exercising that degree of care which a reasonably prudent person would have used under similar circumstances, then the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict. This instruction has been one-of the principal subjects of criticism on the present appeal. But, in our opinion, it adequately. defined the issues in accordance with the principles heretofore applied to the case-by this court.

The special objection that there was no legally sufficient evidence that the defendant had, or might by care- and diligence have obtained, notice as to the existence of the-obstruction, was considered on the prior appeal and definitely overruled. At both trials substantially the same evidence as to notice was introduced. For a similar reason it is unnecessary to discuss again in this opinion the contention that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury for lack of evidence as to primary negligence. The rulings on the prayers do not in any respect present a just ground for a reversal of the second judgment and the remand of the case for a third trial.

There were seven exceptions relating to the admissibility of evidence. Four refer to proved or admitted notice to one of the defendant