J. H. CHAPMAN, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. JAMES M. UNDERWOOD, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

At the time the accident occurred,
which is the basis of this action, there was a single-track street-car line
running along Calle Herran, with occasional switches to allow cars to meet and
pass each other. One of these switches was located at the scene of the
accident.

The plaintiff had been visiting his friend, a man by the name of Creveling,
in front of whose house the accident happened. He desired to board a certain
“San Marcelino” car coming from Santa Ana and bound for Manila. Being told by
Creveling that the car was approaching, he immediately, and somewhat hurriedly,
passed from the gate into the street for the purpose of signaling and boarding
the car. The car was a closed one, the entrance being from the front or the rear
platform. Plaintiff attempted to board the front platform but, seeing that he
could not reach it without extra exertion, stopped beside the car, facing toward
the rear platform, and waited for it to come abreast of him in order to board.
While in this position he was struck from behind and run over by the defendant’s
automobile.

The defendant entered Calle Herran at Calle Penafrancia in his automobile
driven by his chauffeur, a competent driver. A street car bound from Manila to
Santa Ana being immediately in front of him, he followed along behind it. Just
before reaching the scene of the accident the street car which he was following
took the switch—that is, went off the main line to the left upon the switch
lying alongside of the main track. Thereupon the defendant no longer followed
that street car nor went to the left, but either kept straight ahead on the main
street-car track or a bit to the right. The car which the plaintiff intended to
board was on the main line and bound in an opposite direction to that in which
defendant was going. When the front of the “San Marcelino” car, the one the
plaintiff attempted to board, was almost in front of defendant’s automobile,
defendant’s driver suddenly went to the right and struck and ran over the
plaintiff, as above described.

The judgment of the trial court was for defendant. A careful examination of
the record leads us to the conclusion that defendant’s driver was guilty of
negligence in running upon and over the plaintiff. He was passing an oncoming
car upon the wrong side. The plaintiff, in coming out to board the car, was not
obliged, for his own protection, to observe whether a car was coming upon him
from his left hand. He had only to guard against those coming from the right. He
knew that, according to the law of the road, no automobile or other vehicle
coming from his left should pass upon his side of the car. He needed only to
watch for cars coming from his right, as they were the only ones under the law
permitted to pass upon that side of the street car.

The defendant, however, is not responsible for the negligence of his driver,
under the facts and circumstances of this case. As we have said in the case of
Johnson vs. David (5 Phil. Rep., 663), the driver does not fall within
the list of persons in article 1903 of the Civil Code for whose acts the
defendant would be responsible.

Although in the David case the owner of the vehicle was not present at the
time the alleged negligent acts were committed by the driver, the same rule
applies where the owner is present, unless the negligent acts of the driver are
continued for such a length of time as to give the owner a reasonable
opportunity to observe them and to direct his driver to desist therefrom. An
owner who sits in his automobile, or other vehicle, and permits his driver to
continue in a violation of the law by the performance of negligent acts, after
he has had a reasonable opportunity to observe them and to direct that the
driver cease therefrom, becomes himself responsible for such acts. The owner of
an automobile who permits his chauffeur to drive up the Escolta, for example, at
a speed of 60 miles an hour, without any effort to stop him, although he has had
a reasonable opportunity to do so, becomes himself responsible, both criminally
and civilly, for the’ results produced by the acts of his chauffeur. On the
other hand, if the driver, by a sudden act of negligence, and without the owner
having a reasonable opportunity to prevent the act or its continuance, injures a
person or violates the criminal law, the owner of the automobile, although
present therein at the time the act was committed, is not responsible, either
civilly or criminally, therefor. The act complained of must be continued in the
presence of the owner for such a length of time that the owner, by his
acquiescence, makes his driver’s act his own.

In the case before us it does not appear from the record that, from the time
the automobile took the wrong side of the road to the commission of the injury,
sufficient time intervened to give the defendant an opportunity to correct the
act of his driver. Instead, it appears with fair clearness that the interval
between the turning out to meet and pass the street car and the happening of the
accident was so small as not to be sufficient to charge defendant with the
negligence of the driver.

Whether or not the owner of an automobile driven by a competent driver, would
be responsible, whether present or not, for the negligent acts of his driver
when the automobile was a part of a business enterprise, and was being driven at
the time of the accident in furtherance of the owner’s business, we do not now
decide.

The judgment appealed, from is affirmed, with costs against the
appellant.

Arellano, C. J., Carson, and Araullo, JJ., concur.

Trent, J., concurs in the result.