Rignell

This is an appeal from a judgment of $3,500 which was awarded the respondent as compensation for injuries sustained as a result of having been struck by appellants’ automobile while he was engaged in attempting to cross the Embarcadero at San Francisco.

The appellants urge a reversal of the judgment on the grounds that (1) the evidence affirmatively discloses the presence of contributory negligence on the part of respondent, and that (2) the trial judge erred in sustaining an objection to appellants reading in evidence a written statement of the circumstances of the accident made by one of their own witnesses prior to the trial. It is claimed this statement was competent for the purpose of impeachment.

At the time of the accident the respondent was engaged as a stevedore at pier 29 on the waterfront at San Francisco. For ten years the appellant Anthony Font has been the manager of the harbor car service for the appellant California Stevedore & Ballast Company, and was thoroughly familiar with the traffic in that vicinity. At the time of the accident Font was engaged in driving his employer's Chevrolet car northerly along the Embarcadero, which is a broad paved street parallel…