Ruling in Favor of Automobilists

A Los Angeles judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a woman who said an automobile passing her carriage caused her horse to shy and drop the load it was carrying. The woman, identified in The Times as Mrs. Walker, was seeking $15,000 (about $307,853 in 2005 dollars) from the driver and the man who lent him the Winton automobile, which passed her carriage on the road between Los Angeles and Rivera. But Superior Court Judge Frank F. Oster ruled that the car’s driver was keeping to his own side of the road and that evidence showed the horse was skittish around automobiles. A story in The Times about the dismissal of the case ran under the headline: “In Favor of Automobilists” and said that drivers of cars were “congratulating themselves over what they consider the establishment of a valuable precedent in their favor.”