Case ID: ny-st-rep_42/html/0696-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Freedman, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Meighan, App’lt, v. George K. Hollister et al., Resp’ts.
    
      (New York Superior Court,
    
    
      General Term,
    
    
      Filed January 11, 1892.)
    
    Negligence—Owner of building.
    Plaintiff claimed to have been injured by brick or other material falling from one of the chimneys of defendants’ building, but none of his witnesses could say with certainty that the fragments came from said chimneys, or what in fact struck plaintiff. Defendants showed that the chimneys had shortly before been constructed by contractors; that they knew of no defects in them; and that after the accident they were examined, and no part was gone, and there were no loose bricks on the roof. Held, that the complaint was properly dismissed.
    Appeal from judgment entered in favor of the defendants upon the direction of the court dismissing the complaint upon the merits.
    
      James M. Hunt, for app’lt; Jacob Steinhardt, for resp’ts.
   Freedman, J.

The action was brought to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff in consequence of the negligence of the defendants. At the trial the theory of the plaintiff was, that while he passed along Madison avenue in front of premises owned by defendants on the afternoon of February 20, 1888, he was struck by fragments of brick or other material which composed part of one of the chimneys of defendants’ building. Neither the plaintiff nor any of his witnesses was able to say with certainty that the fragments came from one of said chimneys, or what, in fact, had struck the plaintiff. At the close of plaintiff’s case the trial judge refused to dismiss the complaint The defendants thereupon proved the proper construction of their chimneys by independent contractors a short time before the accident; that they had no knowledge or notice of any defect, and that no facts existed which put them upon inquiry ; that at the time of the accident the painter, another independent contractor, had hung his swing scaffold around the chimney claimed by the plaintiff to have been the chimney in question, but was not at work owing to the prevalence of a heavy storm, • with the wind blowing at the rate of thirty miles an hour; that on the same day chimneys of other houses in that locality fell from the storm; that, after the accident, the chimneys of the defendants were examined and no part of them was gone, and that there were no loose bricks on the roof of the building. Indeed, the explanation given by the defendants was full and circumstantial. This cast the burden upon the plaintiff to point out that, notwithstanding the explanation given, there was after all a specific act of omission or commission for which the defendants were responsible and which caused the injury. The plaintiff did not sustain the burden in this respect With the exception of recalling a witness who simply testified that she did not see any scaffold when she looked at the house, the plaintiff did not attempt to contradict the defendant’s witnesses. As the evidence thus left it uncertain what was the true cause of plaintiff’s injuries, and whether the defendants or others were responsible for that cause, the complaint was properly dismissed at the close of the whole case. Searles v. Manhattan Railway Co., 101 N. Y., 661.

As defendants’ house was a new building, and had been built under contract by a competent mason, and may be said to have been still in course of construction at the time of the accident, the doctrine of Mullen v. St. John, 57 N. Y., 567, does not apply. Mor does it make any difference under the special circumstances of this case that the defendants as owners were in possession.

There was no error committed in excluding evidence, and no complaint was made concerning the admission of evidence.

The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.

Gildersleeve, J., concurs.