60 N.Y.S. 289 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1899
The- case of Hickman. v. Nassau Electric R. R. Co. (36 App. Div. 376) was not intended to lay down any new rule of law in negligence cases; 'it simply undertook to decide the question then before the court, and while we have no reason to doubt the correctness of that decision, it is not to be extended to cases in which the same circumstances are not present. In that case the cars were operated on Fifth ¿venue in the borough of Brooklyn; the numbered streets in that vicinity, of which Ninety-first is one, do not cross the avenue, so that the east side of that thoroughfare is a solid block; the avenué at that point is not extensively traveled, and the cars are there operated ata higher rate of speed than in other poHions of the borough. The evidence was that a woman fifty-six years-old. with a sun bonnet on her head, came out upon the sidewalk, looked" in both directions, and, seeing no car, walked slowly out and upon the track, where an approaching car, the gong of which had been sounded for move than half a block, struck her. She had made no effort to seethe approaching car, so far as the evidence’ disclosed, and we held that “It is not enough that the plaintiff should merely look in both directions; she must look for tlie purpose of seeing if there is danger; and if her rate of progress in passing over the danger point is so slow that a car in traveling at a reasonable rate of speed may be reasonably expected to have come within view, and in such a position as to cause danger, she is not excused from the duty of using her eyes