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| Phillips v. Larson, 80 NE 2d 7, 323 Mass 87 (Mass 1948). A 12 year old bicyclist riding Massachusetts Avenue came to a red light at a T intersection with Brattle street at the plaintiff's left. There was a bread truck parked at the curb. A van operated by the defendant came to the light shortly after the plaintiff had already stopped at the red. The plaintiff testified that when the light changed they all started, and the bread truck pulled out and hit him on the right shoulder, knocking him under the wheels of the van. Other witnesses testified that the bread truck never moved and that there was no one in it. The boy may have been riding too close to the row of parked cars. He also sued the driver and owner of the bread truck and lost against them. In his case against the driver of the van, he won and the defendant excepted. Overruled. From the court's opinion: "... The jury could have found that the plaintiff was waiting in the street, 'stopped at the place you would normally stop for a red light,' alongside the cab of the bread truck; that later the defendant drove up the van on the other side of the plaintiff, and stopped, straddling the [streetcar] rail nearest the curb, partly beyond the plaintiff in such a position that thereafter the plaintiff was 'back of the cab, in the middle of the van,'; and that the parties were in the same relative position when they resumed moving forward. They could have concluded that the defendant, who testified that he at no time saw the plaintiff, should have done so, and that it was negligent to drive a van, which was thirty-five feet long, as close to the side of the truck as three and one half to four feet, and so closely to hem in the plaintiff. They further could have found that the defendant's negligence was causally related to the plaintiff's injuries from the testimony of ... an operator of a truck which had stopped behind the defendant, to the effect that he observed the plaintiff standing on the bicycle 'right in between the two trucks,' that the defendant and the plaintiff started up at the same time, and that the plaintiff 'went to move off and his arm hit the side of the' van, and he fell under it. ... A finding of contributory negligence was not required." | ||||
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