Smith Storage & Carting Corp. v. Director-General of Railroads

Headnote

Negligence — railroads — collision at railroad crossing between locomotive and automobile truck.

Smith Storage & Carting Corpn. v. Director-General of Railroads, 202 App. Div. 826 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the fourth judicial department, entered July 5, 1922, affirming a judgment , in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict. The action was to recover for damage to a truck which was struck by one of defendants’ locomotives at a railroad crossing in the village of La Salle. The defendant’s tracks at the point

in question are double tracks running east and west between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N. Y. The river road runs from Niagara Falls, east and west to the point of crossing. It then turns at nearly right angles in a northerly direction. The river road contains the two street car tracks of the International Railway Company to the point where it turns north over the crossing in question. In turning north the river road crosses the double tracks of the New York Central, the single track of the Erie railroad and the double tracks of the high speed line of the International Railway Company. The truck of the plaintiff was being driven by one of its employees. It was going east on the southerly side of the river road. In turning north to make the crossing, the truck crossed the two tracks of the International railway in the river road before it reached the tracks of the defendant. Plaintiff alleged that the driver’s view was obstructed; that the locomotive gave no signal of its approach and that the flagman was absent from his post.