Shaver

This is an appeal from the verdict of a jury and the judgment of the court awarding $15,000 damages for the death of respondents’ intestate, caused by the alleged negligence of appellants in driving their Ford truck into a loaded runaway trailer which had rolled from a gravel bunker adjacent to the highway, into Cromwell Avenue in Los Angeles County. At the time of the accident the decedent was engaged in trying to stop the trailer.

For grounds of reversal the appellants contend that (1) the judgment is not supported by the evidence, (2) that the testimony fails to show negligence on their part, (3) that the evidence affirmatively establishes contributory negligence on the part of the deceased, and (4) that the court erred in the admission of testimony, in giving and refusing certain instructions and in commenting on the weight of evidence to which an expert witness is entitled.

Cromwell Avenue is a paved street thirty-eight feet wide, extending east and west along the base of the Hollywood hills. A six-foot cement sidewalk borders this avenue on the north, and is elevated above the level of the street about six inches. On the north side of this highway, at a point opposite the…