Case ID: ny-sup-ct_8/html/0310-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GEORGE SLOANE, Respondent, v. WILLIAM ELMER, Appellant.
    Damages—servant— liability of principal for.
    
    This action was brought to recover damages for injuries to plaintiff’s wife and son, and to his carriage, by -a collision alleged to have occurred through the negligence of defendant’s servant. At the trial, the defendant introduced evidence to show that he was not the owner of the horses and carriage which had caused the injury, nor the master of its driver. The judge, having left to the jury the question of the ownership of the horses and carriage, was requested to charge “ that if they find the coachman was not the servant of the defendant, but was in the employ of Mrs. Hunt (.one of the occupants and the alleged owner of the carriage), they cannot find for the plaintiff,” and declined so to charge. Held, that his refusal so to do was error. The liability of the defendant depended entirely upon the fact that the coachman was his servant, and the question of the ownership of the carriage and horses was only material as it tended to prove or disprove this fact.
    Appeal from a judgment, entered in favor of the plaintiff, on the verdict of a jury, and from an order denying a motion to set aside the verdict.
    
      Titus B. Eldridge, for the appellant.
    
      A. R. Dyett and R. W. Townsend, for the respondent.
   Opinion by Davis, P. J.

Daniels and Lawbence, JJ., concurred.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered.