Dansky v. Staten Island Midland Railway Co.

Headnote

Negligence — injury from being struck by street car while crossing street ■—• when failure to see approaching car contributory negligence.

Dansky v. Staten Island Midland By. Co., 186 App. Div. 101 , affirmed.

Appeal from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered January 23, 1919, reversing a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict and granting a new trial in an action to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff through the negligence of defendant in the operation of one of its trolley cars in Richmond terrace, borough of. Richmond. Defendant operated its trolley cars in this street upon two tracks. At about seven o’clock in the evening of December 30, 1918, the plaintiff in company with three others attempted to go across the street from the hotel in which he resided, and as he reached the first rail of the defendant’s first track, and before he had gone upon it, he was hit by the side of the car and sustained the injury for which he has recovered. The distance from the curb to the first rail of the track where plaintiff was injured was fifteen feet, and it is the same distance from the front door of the hotel to the curb. Plaintiff testified that when he was half way from the door to the curb he looked down the street and saw the car standing at the corner of Richmond avenue, about seventy-five feet away, and that he did not look again. The Appellate Division held that he was guilty of contributory negligence.