Van Houten v. Fleischmann

As the exceptions taken to the ruling of the trial judge in the admission of evidence for the plaintiff, objected to on behalf of the defendant, and to his refusal to charge, are not specially urged ón this appeal, we refrain from discussing them at length. They have, however, been severally examined and found to be invalid for the assignment of error.

On the trial it was insisted for the defendant that the evidence was insufficient to establish his responsibility for the injuries resulting to the plaintiff from the accident, and two several motions for dismissal of the complaint on that ground were made and .denied, one when plaintiff rested, and the other upon the close of the evidence for both sides. Whatever defect, however, there may have been in plaintiff’s proof at the time of the first motion, was curable by evidence introduced after its denial, The S. & S. Plank Road Co. v. Thatcher, 11 N. Y., 102 , 112; Tiffany v. St. John, 65 id., 315, 317, though as a part of the‘defendant’s case, Painton v. Northern Central R. Co., 83 N. Y., 7 , and plaintiff’s right of recovery must be measured, therefore, by the evidence as it stood when the case was submitted to the jury. A motion for a new trial was also made on behalf of the defendant on the several grounds specified in § 999 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which was likewise- denied; and as the several motions were founded upon the alleged insufficiency of the evidence, they may be properly discussed as one.

The facts undisputed are that defendant is the surviving partner of Fleischmann & Co.; that the team with which plaintiff collided was the property of his firm, and the driver thereof at the time of the collision in its employ; that plaintiff was proceeding along the westerly side of Greenwich street in a southerly direction intending to cross Perry street, and that he had succeeded in crossing to within about four feet of the curb of the southerly sidewalk of Perry street when he was struck by defendant’s team which was approaching Greenwich street, along Perry street, in an easterly direction; and that the violence of his contact with defendant’s team had the effect of throwing plaintiff against an elevated railroad pillar situated near the curb with such force that he sustained the injuries complained of.

The unchallenged evidence for the defendant to that effect, also establishes the accuracy of his contention that when the team reached the crossing along which plaintiff was at the time proceeding, the horse, which theretofore had been of uniformly gentle and manageable disposition, was frightened by a passing elevated

Holmes, a witness for the plaintiff, said that just before the collision he saw the team approaching along Perry street at full speed, estimated by him to be at the rate of seven miles an hour, jumping and galloping and in the act of running away, while the driver was holding on; and Burke, another witness of plaintiff, partly corroborates Holmes by saying that the horse did not appear to be wholly under the control of the driver.

As the shying of a horse, or the running away of a team, is not ■of the driver cannot be inferred therefrom, Quinlan v. Sixth Ave. necessarily the result of any careless or negligent act, negligence R. R. Co., 4 Daly, 487 , 488; Gottwald v. Bernheimer, 6 id., 212; O'Brien v. Miller, 25 Am. St., 320; Button v. Frink, 50 Am., 24; Brown v. Collins, 16 id., 372; Turner v. Buchanan, 42 id., 485, and the facts, so far as they have been recited, may be conceded to be insufficient to entitle plaintiff to recover; but when defendant called as witnesses' Luhman, the driver, and Gerdes, his .assistant, they denied that the horse had at any time run away, become unmanageable, or lost to the control of the driver until it .shied, as already stated. Both Luhman and Gerdes also maintained that the team was being driven at an ordinary gait or “ dog trot,” thus contradicting Holmes to the effect that its speed was at the rate of seven miles an hour; and they further agree that when they first saw plaintiff on the crossing he was four feet from the curb of the southerly sidewalk and they about twenty feet west of him on Perry street; that at this time they uttered their first warning, and that before plaintiff had succeeded in reaching the curb the horse was so close upon him that when it shied at the crossing it threw him as stated.

The testimony of Luhman and Gerdes implies a confession of recklessness to a degree amounting almost.to a wanton and culpable disregard for the safety of human life and limb. Why did they undertake to warn the plaintiff while still twenty feet distant from him ? That they did so seems susceptible of but two explanations: Either the horse had then already become frightened by the passing train, or it is true, as Holmes said, that the team was being driven at an inordinate rate of speed. From which was danger apprehended? If from the frightened horse, might not the jury have found from the facts that it was of uniformly gentle and manageable disposition, and that it was being driven at an ordinary gait and was under the control of the driver, that its forward course could have been checked within the twenty feet remaining between it and the plaintiff, if proper effort in that behalf had been made ?

If the danger was apprehended from the team’s inordinate rate of speed, could not the jury have concluded that the driver was powerless for the time being to stop the team within the distance remaining to the crossing in time to avoid injury to the plaintiff though he had endeavored to do so? We think the evidence is ■capable of either inference, and the jury were not bound to believe the statements of either Luhman or Gerdes that efforts to

Either of the inferences mentioned would establish the driver’s negligence for which the defendant, his master, could be held answerable. Driving at an unusual rate of speed, even in a city street, has been held not to constitute negligence per se, Crocker v. The Knickerbocker Ice Co., 92 N. Y., 652 , but it is a circumstance to be considered with others in determining whether, or not, the driver’s carelessness or negligence caused the injury, Sherman & Redfield on Negligence, § 305; and because the lawful presence of pedestrians on the street crossing of a populous city may be reasonably apprehended, the law imposes the duty upon the drivers of horses and vehicles to exercise a reasonable degree of care and precaution in approaching them to avoid injury ; and if the driver fails to look out for pedestrians, or seeing them, omits to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury to them, he is chargeable with negligence, Murphy v. Orr, 96 N. Y., 14 ; Birkett v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 110 id., 504; 18 St. Rep., 130 , and it is the element of concurrent negligence of the driver which distinguishes the present case from Gottwald v. Bernheimer, 6 Daly, 213 ; Quinlan v. Sixth Ave. R. R. Co., 4 id., 487 ; Hammack v. White, 11 C. B., N. S., 588 ; Herrick v. Sullivan, 120 Mass., 576 ; Brown v. Collins, 53 N. H., 442 , and 16 Am., 372, and others cited in the brief of the learned counsel for the appellant, in each of which absence of all concurrent fault, or blameableness on the part of the driver, was either prov'ed or conceded.

It is urged that, even conceding the driver’s negligence, the accident was directly due to the shying of the horse which the driver could not reasonably have apprehended, and that this was .caused by the passing train; therefore the passing train was the proximate, and the driver’s negligence the remote caqse, and defendant cannot be made answerable. Whether, however, a cause which contributes to an accident is proximate, or not, is not determined with reference to the order in which the several contributing elements succeeded one another, but with reference to the efficiency of these elements, Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, vol. 16, pp. 436, 444; Lawson’s Rights, Remedies & Practice, vol. 3, p. 1743, § 1029, and so it was held in McCahill v. Kipp, 2 E. D. Smith, 413, that a driver who left his horse standing unhitched and unattended in the street was liable for the injuries caused by the running away of the horse, although the runaway would not have occurred but for the act of a stranger in frightening the animal, and though the driver used all reasonable effort to stop the animal after it had started.

So, also, we are of the opinion that it sufficiently appears from the evidence that plaintiff was free from all contributory negligence in causing the accident He was lawfully upon the crossing, and had a right to assume that the driver of a vehicle would approach it with that degree of care which the law imposes upon him as a duty, Murphy v. Orr, supra, and could not reasonably have anticipated the driver’s recklessness in not checking hihorse. It does not appear that he heard the warning, or, hearing it, that the time intervening between it and the collision was reasonably sufficient to have enabled him to appreciate the direction from which the danger was threatened and to have deliberated upon a means of escape, Quill v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Cor, 32 St. Rep., 612 , affd., 126 N. Y. 629 ; 36 St. Rep., 1012 ; and absence of contributory negligence is sufficiently shown if it appears from •the circumstances attending the injury. Warner v. N. Y. C. R. R. Co., 44 N. Y., 465 , 471; Johnson v. H. R. R. R. Co., 20 id., 65; Hart v. Hudson R. Bridge Co., 80 id., 622. The judgment and order should be affirmed.

Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.

Daly, Ch. J., concurs.