Merchants Co. v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co.

The Merchants Company, a wholesale distributor, used a number of automobile trucks in making deliveries to retail customers. While so engaged, one of its trucks went into a roadside ditch of a public highway, and it was necessary to use several large poles in extricating the truck. When this had been done, the operator of the truck drove it away, leaving the poles in the road. That night Grubbs, a traveller in a passenger automobile, struck one or more of the poles and was severely injured, for which he recovered judgment against the Merchants Company.

The mercantile company carried two…