Sanford

Separate appeals are prosecuted in this ease from a joint judgment which was recovered pursuant to the verdict of a jury in an automobile casualty case against the respective owners and operators of two different machines, in one of which the plaintiffs’ intestate was riding as a guest. It was assumed the drivers of the vehicles were implicated in concurrent negligence and wilful misconduct which resulted in the death of the guest.

Mrs. Edith Sanford, a widow, was visiting her sister, Mrs. Gertrude Steger, at Red Bluff. Mrs. Steger owned a Plymouth coupe. When Mrs. Sanford was ready to return to her home at Hayward, Mrs. Steger directed her son Richard to take her automobile and drive his aunt back to her home. Mrs. Sanford, as a guest in her sister’s automobile, started on her return journey on the afternoon of September 9, 1931. Richard did the driving. It was a clear, warm day. They followed the state highway south from Red Bluff over fairly level ground for a distance of about one mile. At this point there is a sharp depression of the roadway where it intersects a substantial swale. From the level highway, until one reaches a point near the dip in the roadway, a vehicle…