Bixby

This is an action for damages for personal injuries and property damage arising out of a collision in the daytime between an automobile driven by plaintiff and the stage of the defendant Pickwick Stages System, a corporation, and its driver, C. W. Hensley. The answer, in addition to denying the allegations of the complaint, pleads contributory negligence and unavoidable. accident. The cause was tried by the court and resulted in a judgment favorable to plaintiff, from which defendants appeal. They attack the findings that the negligence of the defendants was the proximate cause of the injury and damage; and that plaintiff was free from negligence proximately contributing to his injury.

While the evidence was conflicting, the testimony in support of these particular findings is thus summarized: The stage of the defendant corporation was traveling westerly, and the plaintiff was operating his automobile in an easterly direction on the Long Beach-Santa Ana Highway, when the collision occurred. Shortly prior to the accident plaintiff saw a film of smoke over the highway. Pulling well over to his right side of the road at a speed of about twenty miles an hour, he entered the same and…