Delafield v. Union Ferry Co.

Headnote

This was an action to recover damages for injuries to plaintiffs’ canal boat, caused by collision with one of defendant’s ferry-boats, and occasioned by the alleged negligence of those in charge of the latter. Plaintiffs were drawing their boat across in front of the ferry slip. Their witnesses testified it was about sundown, so light that the ferry-boat could be distinctly seen as it left the Brooklyn side, and as it approached the pilot could be seen so distinctly that the witness recognized him upon the streets two days after. Plaintiffs had no light upon their boat. They and their men called and beckoned to the pilot as the ferry-boat approached, but no attention was

paid, and the collision occurred. The principal question in the case was as to the contributory negligence of plaintiffs in not having lights. Held, that the jury were justified in finding that those in charge of defendant’s boat, in the exercise of common prudence, could have seen the canal boat without a light upon her in time to have avoided the collision, and that its occurrence was not in any way attributable to the want of lights, and that there was, therefore, no contributory negligence.