Murphy v. Yonkers Railroad

Headnote

Negligence — railroads — when motorman injured in head-on collision may recover.

Murphy v. Yonkers R. R. Co., 192 App. Div. 923 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered May 28, 1920, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict in an action to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff through the negligence of defendant, his employer, by reason of a collision between two trolley cars of the defendant, one of said cars being operated by plaintiff, as motorman, in a westerly direction from the village of Tuckahoe towards the city of Yonkers on. the single-track portion of what is known as defendant’s Tuckahoe line, and the other car being operated in • an easterly direction along the same line from Yonkers towards Tuckahoe by one Rutledge, who was also working in defendant’s employ as a motorman. The acts of negligence alleged in the complaint were (1) that the defendant and its vice-principals directed and permitted the two colliding cars to be' operated along the single-track portion of its said Tuckahoe line in opposite directions without warning to the plaintiff; (2) that the car with which plaintiff’s car collided was being operated at a negligent rate of speed and was not under proper control; and (3) that the car operated by plaintiff was defective in that its sand-box would not discharge sand upon the rails of the track.

The answer denied the allegations of negligence and alleged that the accident was due entirely to the negligence of the plaintiff.