45 N.Y.S. 1075 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1897
The plaintiff in this action sustained in juries while a jiassenger on one of the defendant’s cars on the 2oth day of August, 1895. At about eight o’clock in the evening of that day she, in company with other persons, boarded the car at Vernon avenue, near Bodine street, in Long Island City. When she entered the car all the seats were occupied, and she was compelled to stand in the aisle and take hold of one of the straps suspended from a rod, in the manner usual in public conveyances on. street railways. The car was moved by electricity on the trolley system. Some of the persons who entered the car with the plaintiff were also obliged to stand, taking various positions in the aisle of the car and on the platform. When the car started the plaintiff, with other passengers, was thrown down upon the floor. She was lifted up, a seat was surrendered to her, and she continued her journey to the Long Island City ferry, but she did not make any complaint to the conductor of the car, nor was any notification of her injury given to the defendant until after this action was brought.
There is nothing in the case to show contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. There was no seat she could occupy when she entered the car, and she stood in' the aisle using the ordinary support furnished by the company for persons so situated.
The exceptions to the rulings of the court on the trial are not well taken. The case was very carefully conducted by the justice presiding, who, in a clear charge, instructed the jury upon the questions of law substantially as requested by the defendant’s counsel. In the main charge, a statement was made, to which exception w'as taken, that the defendant corporation was responsible for the acts of its servants under ordinary circumstances; and it is now contended that that proposition was erroneous and misleading. But if there were any inaccuracy in the expression of the court, the attention of the jury was subsequently and specifically called to what the judge
The only exception taken, to rulings of the court on evidence that requires consideration is that which applies to a question asked Dr. Burnett, a witness called on behalf of the defendant. He testified that in November, about three months after the accident happened to the. plaintiff, he examined her pursuant to an order of the court, and he states that all he discovered as indicating injuries were two-small scars on the back of the thigh, one about the middle of the thigh and the other about the top of it; that they were then in a healed condition and nothing but the two scars remained; that there was no evidence about her limb of any other injury than the two scars mentioned.. He was then asked the question if, in his opinion,, the wounds were of such a nature that they could have been sustained by a person falling on the floor of a street car, which floor was covered with a wooden grating, and from which no points, bolts or nails projected. This question was excluded as incompe
The amount of the verdict was not excessive under all the cir.cumstances and the- judgment and order appealed from should be affirmed, with-costs.
Van Brunt, P. J., Williams, O’Brien, and Ingraham, JJ., concurred.
Judgment and order affirmed, with costs. •