[Download] "Alma L. Palmer v. Howard Marceille Et Al." by Supreme Court of Wisconsin # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Alma L. Palmer v. Howard Marceille Et Al.
- Author : Supreme Court of Wisconsin
- Release Date : January 02, 1934
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
There is little dispute concerning the facts in this case. The plaintiff was taking her children to school in her automobile, and driving at a speed of about thirty miles an hour. The road had a tarvia surface 18 to 20 feet wide, beyond which there was a shoulder, and beyond that a ditch 3 feet deep and 6 feet wide. She observed, about 500 feet ahead, a column of dense smoke, proceeding from a fire at the road side, which entirely covered the right-hand side of the highway. She slackened speed, but to what extent she was unable to say, a cars length before she entered the obscured area, and kept to the extreme right of the traveled portion of the road. As she did so, her car collided with the rear of truck standing, in part at least, upon the tarvia surface, and she suffered the injuries for which she has brought suit. She did not see the truck before the impact. The defendants were employees of the State highway board. Plue, the superior, directed Marceille, his helper, to gather into piles and remove the scrapings from the shoulder of the road preparatory to oiling the surface, and to clean out the ditches. Marceille, assisted by one Wimett, proceeded to do so and, having partly filled the truck with rubbish Wimett, under Marceilles direction, set fire to a forkfull of hay which had been raked out of the ditch, the smoke from which was blown diagonally across the road, behind the truck, which was standing on the right-hand side of the highway at a distance variously estimated as being 5 to 10 feet beyond the fire. In causing the fire to be kindled Marceille was acting under the instruction of county road superintendent Cady. At the time of the accident the fire had not been burning over five minutes and the smoke had been blowing across the highway for three or four minutes. Plue was not present at that time. The truck was of one and one-half tons capacity with a flat-bottomed platform and rack body and weighed with its then load about two and one-half tons. The collision was of such force that the plaintiffs automobile was overturned and badly damaged, and the truck, which had its emergency brake set, was shoved a distance of 20 feet off the road and through the ditch, and the rack was sprung out of shape. The road was substantially level and perfectly straight for some distance on either side of the place of the collision. The plaintiff was familiar with it. Marceille took no steps to warn any approaching travelers of the presence of the truck, although, at the time of the kindling of the fire and until the accident occurred, he was standing nearby, doing nothing. Witnesses called by the plaintiff, who passed the place in the opposite direction just before the accident, testified that the smoke obscured only on the side of the road upon which the plaintiff was driving.