Case ID: ny-st-rep_28/html/0388-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dykman, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Alice Bartholomew, an Infant, Resp’t, v. The Poughkeepsie & Highland Ferry Co., App’lt.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
    
    
      Filed December 9, 1889.)
    
    1. Negligence—Ferries—Damages.
    Plaintiff, in passing to defendant’s boat, stepped into a hole or joint in the bridge and her knee was severely injured. It appeared that the hole was usually covered by a plate, which had been pushed one side a week before to defendant’s knowledge. Held, that defendant was liable, and that a verdict of $5,000 was not excessive.
    3. Same—Charge.
    The court charged that the fact that a thousand or ten thousand persons, went every day on the ferry and did not get injured, would not excuse the company for not providing for the case when this obviously dangerous place was to result in an accident. Held, no error.
    Appeal from judgment in favor of plaintiff, entered on the verdict of a jury.
    
      Plaintiff, a child of ten years, was passing with her mother and aunt to get upon defendant’s ferry boat, when she stepped into a hole in the bridge and injured her knee so that at the time of the trial she was unable to use it and suffered great pain. This hole was a joint in the bridge which closed at high tide. It was usually covered by an iron plate, but the evidence showed that such plate had been pushed one side about a week before and so remained to the knowledge of defendant. It also appeared that there was a great deal of traffic going over at the time of the accident.
    The court, in its charge to the jury, said that “ the fact that a thousand or ten thousand persons went every day on the ferry and did not get injured, would not excuse this company for not providing for the case when this obviously dangerous place was to result in an .accident.”
    The jury returned a verdict for $5,000.
    
      Thompson & Lown (H. A. Nelson, of counsel), for app’lt; Allison Butts, for resp’t.
   Dykman, J.

This is an action against a ferry company for the recovery of the damages resulting to the plaintiff from an injury sustained by her while walking from the ferry house to. the boat upon which she was to embark for passage across the Hudson river at Poughkeepsie.

The injury was caused by an opening in the plank or bridge over which the plaintiff passed, into which she stepped. Her leg went through the opening and her knee joint was injured in a very serious manner.

The trial of the cause resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff which is fully sustained by the evidence and the law applicable to the case.. There was but one exception to the charge, and that presents no error.

There is no merit in the appeal, and the judgment and order denying the motion for a new trial should be affirmed.

Pratt, J., concurs; Barnard, P. J., not sitting.