Jendrzejewski v. Baker

Grason, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Belair Road, for the purpose of this case, will be considered to run north and south. Eierman Avenue, which is twenty-four feet two inches wide from curb to curb, runs to the west side of this road, and opposite this intersection on the' east side is an alley nineteen feet two inches wide, which intersects Belair Road. The north side of Eierman Avenue, if projected across the road, would enter this alley at a little to the south of its center.

One hundred and twenty feet north of the intersection of this alley and the Belair Road, and parallel with the alley, Nicholas Avenue enters from the east, but does not cross over Belair Road. It is twenty-three feet six inches wide from curb to curb. At this location the Belair Road is seventy-two feet and one-half inch from curb to curb. It is a modern, well-paved highway.

In the middle of the road are two electric car tracks, the one to the west carries southbound traffic and the one to the east northbound traffic. From the west ⁴³ rail of the northbound track to the east rail of the southbound track is about six feet and seven and one-half inches. Eighteen feet north of a line drawn from the northeast corner of the road and the aforesaid alley is a pylon and immediately north of the pylon, paralleling the east rail of the northbound track, is a safety zone about eighty-one feet long and three feet eight inches wide. From the west line of this safety zone to the east rail of the northbound track is about two and one-half feet and from the east curb of Belair Road to the east rail of the northbound track is a distance of twenty-three feet.

On the west side of the road, paralleling the west rail of the southbound track, there is a similar safety zone, the pylon being at the north end thereof. At the northeast corner of Nicholas Avenue and Belair Road is a fruit stand. This location is in northeast Baltimore. Percy Winfield Baker lived on Seidel Avenue and at about 11 o’clock on the night of January 22, 1942, he left his home to go to a plant in southwest Baltimore, where he was employed.

The night was clear and the street dry. He walked to Nicholas Avenue, thence west to the corner of that avenue and Belair Road, where he stopped for a few minutes. He could see, several blocks to the north, sparks caused by contact of the trolley pole with the wire and knew a southbound car was approaching before he could see it due to a hill that intervened. His intention was to take a southbound electric car and he usually boarded the car at the south end of the safety zone on the west side of the road as passengers were taken on in the front end of the car at that point.

He walked to the north end of the safety zone on the east side of the road, down the safety zone to three feet north of the pylon at the southern end of the zone. While at that point he saw an automobile, its lights burning, traveling north, and it was at that time, he estimates, one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty feet from the pylon. He does not know how fast ⁴⁴ it was approaching, but the uncontradicted evidence in the case is that it was running thirty miles an hour, which was the speed limit at that time. He says that the left-hand wheels of this automobile, when he first saw it, were on the east rail of the northbound track.

It thus appears if its course had not been changed it would have hit the pylon. Running at thirty miles an hour an automobile travels forty-four feet per second, so that when he first saw this automobile, if we translate the speed to time, it was less than four seconds from him. The machine was traveling at a lawful rate of speed to the right of the center of the road and was in a place on the road where it had a right to be. The whole of the safety zone was between this alley on the south and Nicholas Avenue to the north.

So that at the time the plaintiff saw this automobile he was in a safety zone, a place of safety erected for pedestrians to board electric cars, and this safety zone was between street intersections. The witness further stated that when he saw the automobile its front end deviated slightly to the right and he thought that it was going to pass to the right of the safety zone and not to the left. He further states that acting upon his assumption that the automobile would pass to the right of the safety zone, he left his position of safety behind the pylon and started to cross to the west side of the road. When he had taken one or two steps out, he testified, this automobile swerved suddenly to the left when it was