Kruse

Appeals by defendants from a judgment entered on a verdict for the plaintiffs in an action to recover for personal injuries.

E. A. Kruse is the husband of Madeline C. Kruse, and the latter—who will be hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff—while crossing a public highway known as the Alameda, near its intersection with Tosemite Avenue in Berkeley, Alameda County, was injured by an automobile owned by the corporation defendant and operated by Meyer, one of its employees. As grounds for reversal of the judgment it is urged by appellant corporation that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a finding that Meyer was acting within the scope of his employment, and that certain instructions to the jury were prejudicially erroneous; and, by appellant Meyer, that the only inferences reasonably to be drawn from the evidence support his special defense of contributory negligence.

Meyer, who resided in Oakland, was there employed as a salesman for the corporation, a dealer in hardwood lumber, with its place of business in San Francisco. According to the testimony his working hours commenced at 8 A. M. and ended at 5 P. M., it being his duty during those hours to solicit orders for his…