Hill v. Baltimore & N. Y. Ry. Co.

The plaintiff, then an infant n years 9 months and 7 days old, was injured on the 22d day of March, 1897, while attempting to board a moving coal train of the defendant. He had caught hold of the handles of the car, and had swhng his feet clear from the ground, in the attempt to board the train, when one of the defendant’s brakemen threw a piece of coal at him, and in endeavoring to dodge it he lost his hold, fell under the car, and had his leg cut off. The dismissal of the complaint was before the plaintiff’s case was rested, and was based by the learned tidal justice upon the ground that the plaintiff was sui juris, and that his negligence in attempting to board the moving train barred a recovery as matter of law. The court, referring to the plaintiff, stated that, “If he was non sui juris, that makes another case,” to which the plaintiff’s counsel responded, “It is for the jury to pass upon that.” After some additional evidence had been given, the court said: “The only point in the case is whether this boy is sui juris. I think he was. I am going to hold that he was. * * * I dismiss it upon your opening and on my own examination of the plaintiff, which has convinced me that he was sui juris. Mr. Lamb: I make the usual motion to set aside the direction, and to go to the jury. (Motion denied. Exception by plaintiff.)” It was error to hold that the plaintiff, an infant under 12 years of age, was sui juris as matter of law. The question was for the jury to determine, and, if they found him to be sui juris, he would, of course, have been properly held liable for the consequences of his negligence, provided the jury should find that such negligence was the proximate or a contributing cause of his injury. If, however, he was not sui juris, he could not be lawfully made to suffer, even as a trespasser, by reason of the affirmative act of negligence on the defendant’s part in throwing coal at him while he was engaged in the hazardous act of boarding the car. The fact that he had not yet secured a position of safety upon the car can make no difference in principle, provided a jury should' find that he was too young to appreciate in law the negligent nature of his act, and that no negligence was chargeable to his parents or guardian. There is no case in this state to which our attention has been called \Vhich holds that an infant under 12 years of age is sui juris as matter of law. It is true that in Wendell v. Railroad Co., 91 N. Y. 420 , the plaintiff’s infant decedent was only seven years of- age, but, as Chief Judge Ruger pointed out at page 425, “the case was tried upon the assumption by the court and both parties that the deceased was sui juris, and that his parents were not chargeable with negligence in permitting him to be in the place where he was injured.” So, in the case of McCarthy v. Railroad Co., 37 App. Div. 187 , 55 N.

In Tucker v. Railroad Co., 124 N. Y. 308 , 26 N. E. 916 , 21 Am. St. Rep. 670 , it was held that the question at what age an infant’s responsibility for negligence may be presumed to commence is not one of fact, but of law; and in analogy to the provision of section 19 of the Penal Code, to the effect that a child under the age of 12 years would be presumed to be incapable of crime, it was suggested that 12 years was the age at which the presumption of capacity to appreciate danger and to exercise caution should commence. The presumption in either case — that is, of incapacity below the age of 12 and of capacity at that age — may, of .course, be overborne by evidence. But, as was said by the court of appeals in the recent case of Zwack v. Railroad Co., 160 N. Y. 362 , 365, 54 N. E. 785 , 786:

“The reasoning of the court in the case of Tucker v. Railroad Co., 124 N. Y. 308 , 26 N. E. 916 , 21 Am. St. Rep. 670 , is to the effect that an infant under the age of twelve years is presumed to he non sui juris, so that the question with respect to his capacity at that age becomes one of fact. It is true that an infant, even of more tender years, may he shown to he sui juris. The fact must, in such eases, depend upon the capacity and intelligence of the child; and hence becomes a question for the consideration of the jury in connection with all the facts and circumstances of the case.”

In the present state of the law these two cases must be regarded as authority for the proposition that the legal presumption of non sui juris lasts until the infant has reached the age of 12 years, especially in view of the fact that no authoritative decision exists for the entertaining of a contrary presumption at an earlier age.

But, even 'if a jury should find the plaintiff in this case to be sui juris, and therefore chargeable with negligence, it does not necessarily follow that the defendant would be relieved from liability for the brakeman’s act in throwing the .coal in order to prevent him from securing a position of safety upon the car. The rule is well settled that even to a trespasser the duty exists of refraining from overt acts of violence calculated to occasion injury. It may be conceded that the brakeman, acting in the discharge of his duty to his master, would be justified in preventing the plaintiff from boarding the train by such means as would not subject the latter to extra and unnecessary hazards. As was said in a somewhat similar case (Clark v. Railroad Co., 40 Hun, 605 , 610, affirmed in 113 N. Y. 670 ,

“That the defendant’s employes on the train had the right, and it was within the scope of their authority, to remove the plaintiff from the car-in a lawful and proper manner, was not questioned, but was assumed' at the trial; and the right of the plaintiff to recover was, by the charge, made dependent upon the use of unreasonable and improper means for that purpose. And although the act of getting upon the train while in motion was dangerous, and known to the plaintiff to be so, it cannot be said to be the proximate cause of the injury, and does not furnish imputation of contributory negligence.”

See, also, Kenyon v. Railroad Co., 5 Hun, 479 ; Lang v. Railroad Co., 51 Hun, 603 , 4 N. Y. Supp. 565 , affirmed in 123 N. Y. 656 , 25 N. E. 955 ; Meisch v. Railway Co., 72 Hun, 604 , 25 N. Y. Supp. 244 ; Lang v. Railroad Co., 80 Hun, 275 , 30 N. Y. Supp. 137 ; McKeon v. Railway Co., 20 App. Div. 601 , 47 N. Y. Supp. 374 ; Weitzman v. Railroad Co., 33 App. Div. 585 , 53 N. Y. Supp. 905 ; Rounds v. Railroad Co., 64 N. Y. 129 , 21 Am. Rep. 597 ; Distler v. Railroad Co., 151 N. Y. 424 , 45 N. E. 937 , 35 L. R. A. 762 ; Girvin v. Railroad Co., 166 N. Y. 289 , 59 N. E. 921 .

In an opinion written by the learned trial justice on the denial' of the motion for a new trial it is stated:

“Had the brakeman hit him [the plaintiff] with the coal, and injured him, another question would be presented; but what he did now only presents the question whether it can be deemed negligent in the brakeman to by any effective means induce the boy to desist from his foolhardy purpose. No jury could be permitted to say that such a course involved a greater risk of injury to the boy than would have done the unmolested prosecution of his-dangerous purpose.”

It seems to us that the questions here considered are questions of fact, and not of law. Giving the plaintiff the benefit of the favorable inferences to which he is entitled from the evidence, it is established that he had swung his feet clear from the ground in the act of stepping upon the car at the time the coal was thrown. His act, of course, was a dangerous and unlawful one, and the defendant would not be liable for any injury resulting from it. The defendant owed him no duty of care or vigilance under the circumstances, and' was justified in frustrating the accomplishment of his unlawful purpose by every reasonable and proper means. Whether to throw coal at him while he was engaged in his dangerous act was a reasonable and proper means, and whether it involved greater risk of injury than-the plaintiff had voluntarily incurred, are questions for the consideration and determination of the jury. If they should find that the means employed were unnecessary, improper, unreasonable, and fraught with certain and imminent peril to the plaintiff, enhanced by-the very fact of the dangerous position in which he had placed himself, and that otherwise the injury inflicted could have been wholly avoided, such means might well be regarded as constituting the proximate cause of the accident; and in that view, under the authorities,, a recovery might be had notwithstanding the negligence on the plain.—

Judgment and order reversed, and new trial granted; costs to abide the event All concur.