Evarts v. Santa Barbara Consolidated Railway Co.

Action for damages on account of alleged negligence. Judgment for plaintiffs, from which defendant appeals.

The case was tried by a jury upon the testimony of the plaintiffs’ witnesses alone, the defendant submitting no evidence. The evidence on the part of plaintiffs tended to show that defendant has caused an excavation to be made in a public street in the city of Santa Barbara, and suffered the same to remain open and unguarded and without signal lights to warn travelers of the danger. That Dr. Evarts, a man about forty-four years of age, a practicing physician, who had engaged in such practice for twenty-two years, while driving upon such public street after dark on the evening of September 18, 1903, was precipitated into such excavation and received injuries from the effects of which death ensued on the second day of October following. Dr. Evarts is shown to have been a man of good health previous to the accident, and to have, been a kind and indulgent father and an attentive husband to the wife, who was an invalid and whose physical condition required much personal care and nursing from the husband. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of plaintiffs for $12,000, for which…