Henderson v. Los Angeles Traction Co.

This action was brought to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff through a collision between an electric car of defendant and a wagon in which plaintiff was seated. The jury returned a verdict for defendant, and plaintiff appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

Plaintiff, a plumber’s helper, twenty-three years of age, who was accustomed to and understood the driving and handling of horses, on the morning of July 2, 1901, accompanied his employer in an ordinary one-horse uncovered plumber’s wagon to a residence on the west side of Georgia Street, in the city of Los Angeles, which his employer entered to examine its plumbing, leaving -plaintiff in charge of the horse and wagon. Georgia Street is a street forty feet wide between the curbs, running in a northerly and southerly direction, and defendant on the day of the collision operated a double-track electric railway ■ over it, the distance between the curb and the west side of' defendant’s track being thirteen feet.’ The residence at which they called was on Georgia Street, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets, and soon after his employer had gotten out of the wagon and entered the house…