223 A.D. 237 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1928
Lead Opinion
The plaintiff sustained personal injuries through falling down a stone step upon emerging from a revolving door on defendant’s premises, upon which the plaintiff concededly was an invitee. The plaintiff sued the defendant in negligence, claiming that she was struck by the rapidly revolving door and fell because the place of the accident was dangerous in that the
The jury, after they had retired, requested additional information regarding the distance between the outside edge of the revolving door and the edge of the step. Thus they plainly indicated their finding of negligence on the part of the defendant upon the fact that the proximity of the step in question to the revolving door created a dangerous situation. The plaintiff testified that she was thrown off her balance by this step at the immediate edge of the doorway. Whether the defendant maintained an exit inherently dangerous presented a question of fact for the jury. It was for the jury to determine whether the proximate cause of the accident was the location of the step in question. Whether the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in entering the revolving door while it was in motion also presented a question of fact for the jury. It is common knowledge that revolving doors are for considerable periods of time constantly in motion and that they are commonly entered by the public while in motion. The plaintiff was not injured in entering the door. She testified she entered the door carefully and was struck after entry was completed and as she was about to emerge. Even though the act of some third person in revolving the door at an excessive rate of speed was a concurrent cause of the accident, that would not relieve the defendant from liability. As was said by Judge Gray in Sweet v. Perkins (196 N. Y. 482, 485): “ There may be more than one proximate cause of an accident, if each of the causes asserted can be seen to have been an efficient one, without which the injury resulting would not have been sustained. If the negligent acts of two, or more, persons concur in contributing to an accident, the injured person may hold them, jointly and severally, liable. Where concurrence in causes is charged, the test is, simply, could the accident have happened without their co-operation? ”
A case in point, both upon the issues of negligence and of
It follows that the judgment appealed from should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to the appellant to abide the event.
Merrell and McAvoy, JJ., concur; Dowling, P. J., and Proskauer, J., dissent.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). The nearness of the step to the revolving door was not the proximate cause of this accident. On the plaintiff’s testimony, her fall was occasioned by the impact of a wing of the revolving door upon her. She was thrown to the ground, not because she stumbled or slipped upon the step, but because she was struck by the revolving door. Her injury was occasioned by no act or omission of the defendant.
Hanley v. Butler, Inc. (167 App. Div. 329) is not controlling. There there were two sets of double swinging doors; outside of the second set was a very narrow step with a fall of nine and one-half inches. As is stated in the opinion: “ There was no reason to suppose that the two floors were on different levels; ” and there was a situation from which a jury was to say whether there was not “ obviously faulty construction constituting a trap.” The plaintiff there fell because of the nature of the construction. No such situation exists in the case at bar.
For this reason the trial court correctly dismissed the complaint, and the judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
Dowling, P. J., concurs.
Judgment reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event.
