Shackelford

Appellants, widow and children of William T. Shackelford, deceased, and plaintiffs below in a diversity suit, appeal from a judgment denying them recovery against the defendant Taxicab Company, its owner and driver, for the killing of Shackelford in a collision between the taxicab and a Studebaker car in Santa Clara County, California.

The collision occurred on a straight, level road at about 2:30- a. m. on a clear moonlit night, two nights after full moon, the motor travel there being infrequent. The Studebaker in the easterly lane, the lefthand side of the four lane highway, was proceeding southerly in the wrong direction. The taxicab with its driver and two sailor passengers was proceeding northerly on its righthand side of the highway when the collision occurred.

While in an ordinary automobile collision the burden of proof is always on the plaintiff, in California where a taxicab is a public vehicle and there is an inference of its negligence in collision cases, the burden is on those responsible for its operation to go forward and present “evidence sufficient to meet or balance the inference of negligence”. 1 To *859 satisfy this burden a common carrier must produce…