Varcoe v. Lee

I concur in the judgment, and also in the opinion except upon the question of judicial notice, a determination of which question appears to be considered by the majority opinion as essential to a conclusion that the trial court did not err in instructing the jury that Mission Street at Twenty-first Street was a "business district" within the meaning of the provision of the Motor Vehicle Act limiting speed in such a district to not exceeding fifteen miles an hour. I am not satisfied that the opinion does not carry the doctrine of judicial notice to an unwarranted extent. It seems to me, after a careful consideration of the record, that the instruction referred to may fairly be upheld upon the theory that there was no question in the trial court as to the place of the accident, being within such a district and that this was something practically conceded on all hands. Certainly every scrap of evidence tending to throw any light whatever on the matter so tended to show, and the *Page 348 trial court apparently took the matter as granted. No complaint whatever was made as to these instructions until the closing brief of appellants was filed in this court. I do not think they should now be held erroneous.