Pacific Greyhound Lines v. Rumeh. Pacific Greyhound Lines v. Rhodes

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of two of appellant’s paying passengers held to have been negligently injured while traveling in New Mexico in one of appellant’s busses running easterly on the highway from Las Cruces. Appellee Rumeh brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Appellee Rhodes filed her suit in the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, from which it was duly removed to the court below. The necessary diversities and amounts sought to be recovered exist for the federal jurisdiction. Apart from the questions of the amount of damages suffered, the pertinent facts in each case are the same and the cases were heard on the same testimony as to negligence.

The collision was with a Ford auto of 3,200 pounds’ weight which, traveling westerly, swerved southerly across to its left. It was struck by the oncoming bus weighing 18,000 pounds with such force that the Ford car was driven backwards a distance of 144 feet before coming to stop off the paved highway.

The legally established speed limit on the highways of New Mexico is 45 miles per hour. There is evidence that the bus was traveling in excess of that speed. Its time limit…