Edwards v. State Ex Rel. Guy

Parke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal in this case is from a judgment obtained by the State of Maryland, for the use of the surviving husband and infant children of Mamie Guy, in an action, under article 67, secs. 2-4, of the Code, and section 1, as amended by Acts 1929, ch. 570, sec. 3, brought against Roderick Edwards and Gertrude E. Baldwiú for damages resulting from the death of Mamie Guy, alleged to have been sustained by the negligence of the defendants in the operation of an automobile which struck and killed Mamie Guy, a pedestrian crossing the. public highway on which the automobile was proceeding. The defendants submitted three prayers at the close of the testimony, which instructed the jury to render a verdict for the defendants on the ground either that no primary negligence of the defendants had been shown, or that the dead woman had been guilty of contributory negligence. The trial court declined to> grant any of these prayers, and an exception was tallen.

A verdict was rendered, and a judgment extended, and this appeal brings forward for review the correctness of the rulings on the prayers. The testimony tended to show that Gertrude E. Baldwin is the owner of an automobile, and. her chauffeur is Roderick Edwards. On the evening of December 30th, 1932, she was returning from Baltimore to Annapolis in her automobile. ²¹⁹ A guest, Elizabeth E. Mumford, occupied the back seat with her, and her chauffeur' was alone on the front seat driving the automobile. At the time of the accident, the owner was asleep and the guest was. awake.

The victim of the accident was Mamie Guy, who was in the service of Margaret Golden. Her mistress had taken the servant to Annapolis to do some shopping. The purchases made, they returned in the automobile with the intention of letting the servant out opposite the entrance to a private road, which led to where the servant lived, on the west side of the Annapolis Boulevard, the public highway over which they were- traveling. It was then near six o’clock, and a dense fog that was close to the ground made travel extremely dangerous.

The mistress drove slowly on the eastern lane of travel northward towards Baltimore, looking to the opposite side for the entrance to the private road, but they passed by it because of the fog, so the automobile was driven a quarter of a mile to a filling station, where the automobile was turnéd and was driven back on the west lane of travel, but the entrance was again missed in the fog, and, after the automobile had been driven to another good place to turn, it again proceeded on the east side of the highway, moving very slowly, and preceded and followed by an automobile moving in the same direction. The entrance to the road was perceived this third time, the automobile, with its lights lit, was stopped on the right or east side of the road, and the automobile following, which was operated by Mrs. Marie Bayline, also stopped, about six feet back of the Golden automobile. Mrs. Golden let Mamie Guy out from her seat on the right, and the latter, who was dressed in dark clothes, walked back along the east side of the automobile and then turned to her right, and walked straight across the highway until she was in the path of the western lane of south-bound travel, when she was struck on a straight stretch of the highway between two curves by the automobile driven by Roderick Edwards. The woman was thrown to the ground, the automobile passed over her and continued under slowing speed, until it stopped 500 or 600 feet from where the body ²²⁰ lay, and returned.

The woman was lying' on the shoulder of the road, about twehty-five feet from the entrance of the private road to her home, and her hat was found fifteen feet, in the direction of 'Baltimore, away from the body.' She was ■unconscious, and was taken to the hospital in Annapolis, where she soon died-. Her injuries consisted of two' wounds, extending from the rectum to the front, about three and a half inches in length and four and a half inches in depth, which indicated, in the doctor’s opinion, that the woman had been struck from behind. The only other mark was a small brush 'bum on the left knee. According to the chauffeur’s testimony, the' damage to the automobile indicated that she had been struck by-the right-hand corner of the radiator of the sedan, and that the machine passed over what his automobile had hit.

Mrs. Golden did not see the accident. She started her automobile in low gear when Mamie Guy closed' the' door of the automobile and left. Her automobile was in motion when she suddenly saw the sedan approaching and pass, as she expressed it, at a terrific rate of speed, without her hearing it give any signal. She later stated that she had been driving about seven years and that, in her opinion, the automobile was going over twenty-eight mile's an hour. -Mrs. Bay-line did see the' accident, and she is the only one, except Edwards, who did.

It happened so