126 N.E. 722 | NY | 1920
The plaintiff, while riding in a taxicab, was run down and injured by the defendant's ambulance. The legislature has created for the city of New York a board of ambulance service, with authority to establish ambulance districts, and contract with any hospital corporation for ambulance service therein (Greater N Y Charter, § 693a; L. 1909, ch. 395). The defendant, a hospital corporation, undertook to supply such service in return for a yearly payment, and was fulfilling its undertaking at the time of the collision. It admits that its driver was negligent, and that the plaintiff was blameless, but it couples the admission with the prayer that it be absolved from liability. The claim of exemption does not rest upon its character as a public charity. The rule is now settled that a hospital, though public, is "liable to strangers, i.e., to persons other than patients, for the torts of its employees within the line of their employment" (Schloendorff v. N.Y. Hospital,
We find the claim untenable. The state is not liable for the torts of its agents and contractors unless such liability has been assumed (Smith v. State of N.Y.,
We did not hold to the contrary in Corbett v. St. Vincent'sIndustrial School of Utica (
The judgment should be affirmed with costs.
HISCOCK, Ch. J., CHASE, COLLIN, POUND, CRANE and ANDREWS, JJ., concur.
Judgment affirmed. *187