Vaca

On October 23, 1924, plaintiff’s intestate, while crossing the track of appellant corporation where it crosses Palm Street, a public street in the city of San Luis Obispo, in a Ford truck, was struck at a grade crossing by a south-bound passenger train of the Southern Pacific Company and received injuries from which he died. This action is prosecuted by the administrator of the estate of the deceased to recover damages on account of his death. The action was dismissed as to the defendant Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and the jury before which the action was tried returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff and against the defendant Southern Pacific Company in the sum of twenty thousand dollars.

The case was tried on the theory that an automatic bell maintained at the Palm Street crossing to give warning of the approach of trains failed to ring on the occasion of the approach of the train which collided with the Ford truck driven by Vidal Garcia, deceased, and that this failure was due to a lack of proper care on the part of the railroad company in the maintaining of the automatic bell. The answer denies the alleged negligence and as a further defense charges contributory…