185 A.D. 739 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1919
The defendant’s car was coming down Lexington avenue when at Thirty-fourth street it ran into a car east bound on Thirty-fourth street and caused the injuries of which the plaintiff complains. It seems that the motorman on the defendant’s car had fainted away and fallen so that the car was not under control. It is claimed, therefore, that the motorman could not have been guilty of negligence and that the master was not guilty of negligence in employing the motorman without knowledge that he might be subject to such attacks, and the court dismissed the complaint upon the ground that the defendant has not been shown to have been guilty of negligence causing the plaintiff’s injury.
The degree of care that is required to be exercised by any person owing a duty to exercise reasonable care, varies with the dangers which are incident to his failure to exercise care. A motorman has not only the lives and the safety of the passengers in his own car at stake, but also the traveling public, or such part of it as may have occasion to cross the tracks, and especially as in the case at bar, where one is in another car crossing the tracks, without opportunity to escape therefrom. The danger is, therefore, great. The responsibility is an important one and what is reasonable care under the
Dowling, Laughlin, Page and Shearn, JJ., concurred.
Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide event.