25 Barb. 600 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1854
The important question in the case arises upon the refusal of the court to direct a verdict for the defendants on the ground that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence which contributed to the injury; and the question is, was such negligence so conclusively proved by the evidence that there was no question to submit to the jury in relation to it 7 If so, the court should have directed a verdict for the defendant according to the request of their counsel, and the refusal to do so was error.
The undisputed facts proved on the trial are, that the defendants’ cars were running on their usual time at the place in question, which was about thirty rods from the place where the plaintiff had lived for about two years, and where they had passed several times a day during all that time ; that on this occasion the plaintiff was driving down a street running at right angles with the defendants’ road ; that for a distance of about seven rods before he reached the track, there was an unobstructed view of the rail road, in the direction from which the cars were coming, of from sixty to eighty rods, and that the cars might have been seen from the place where the plaintiff was, for that distance; that the cars must have been in plain sight from where the plain
This case, in principle, is not distinguishable from the cases of Spencer v. The Utica and Schenectady R. R. Co. (5 Barb. 337,) and Haring v. The N. Y. and Erie R. R. Co. (13 Barb. 9.) In the first case, the plaintiff was injured by a collision with the defendants’ working train, which had for some weeks been passing and repassing the plaintiff’s house daily, about the same hours of the day. The plaintiff with his team was passing from his house on the north, to his meadow on the south side of the rail road, along a lane about fourteen rods in length, which crossed the rail road at right angles. From any-part of this road there was an uninterrupted view of the western line of the road, from which direction the defendants’ cars came for nearly a mile. Gridley, J., says : “ Upon the undisputed facts of this case it is impossible to maintain that the plaintiff was free from negligence, because he either saw the train approaching before he drove upon the track, or he did not. If he did, it was an act of madness voluntarily to place himself in the way of the train. If he did not, as is most probable, but during the entire 14 rods allowed his attention to be attracted to his neighbor’s load of hay, according to the testimony of one witness, that was an act of most lamentable want of care.” The case of Hartfield v. Roper, (21 Wend. 615,) is cited, and the learned justice adds, “ if that case is law, then upon the undisputed facts contained in the report of this cause the plaintiff must be held guilty of negligence ; and that being the ease, neither the report of referees nor the verdict of a jury can stand.” In the case of Haring v. N. Y. and Erie Rail Road, Co., the deceased, whose death was the subject of the action, was riding with another person who was driving at the rate of a mile in four or five minutes, on a highway which crossed the defendants’ road at a point where there were high embankments between the rail road and
The negligence of the defendants in not ringing their bell in this case must be assumed, and if that had been the only means by which the plaintiff could be apprised of the approach of the cars, it might be decisive of the case. But he was driving directly towards the track, at an hour when he had been accustomed to see them pass that point daily, where he ought to have expected them, and where in fact they were, within 20 rods of the crossing, running on a descending grade of 50 feet to a mile, and in plain sight all the time after he had approached within
It was objected on the argument, that the request of the defendants’ counsel, putting the allegation of the defendants’ negligence on the fact of stopping on the track “ at the time in question,” excludes the consideration of the other circumstances tending to prove negligence. In the view I have taken of the case, the request, if it is to be so construed, was sufficient. But I think it is not to be so limited. It fairly apprised the court of the negligence on which the defendants relied, and that was enough.
Judgment reversed.
Marvin, Bowen and Greene, Justices. Affirmed by the Court of Appeals, December Term, 1856.J