Swartz

Plaintiffs sued for damages for personal injuries. The cause was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict for plaintiffs for five thousand dollars. Prom the judgment on the verdict the defendants appeal on typewritten transcripts.

Mrs. Swartz was driving her automobile in a westerly direction along the public highway between Walnut Creek and Lafayette, in Contra Costa County, when, in approaching a curve on the highway, she collided with a trailer attached to a truck operated by defendants and which was at the time being driven in an easterly direction along the same highway. The left wheel of the trailer struck the left front wheel of plaintiffs’ car in such a manner that the steering-gear was jammed. The Swartz car then proceeded slowly across the left-hand side of the highway a distance of about thirty-five feet to the edge of a creek, paused momentarily, and then plunged down to the stream bed, where it turned on its side and where Mrs. Swartz received the injuries complained of. The negligence charged to the defendants is the operation of the truck at an excessive rate of speed—about twenty-six miles an hour; the careless attachment of the trailer which permitted it to…