Case ID: nys_88/html/0388-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "SCOTT, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McCARTHY v. INTERURBAN ST. RY. CO.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term.
    May 19, 1904.)
    1. Carriers—Passengers—Injuries while Alighting—Notice to Conductor.
    A passenger cannot recover for injuries sustained in alighting from a street car by reason of the car starting forward after having stopped, in the absence of any notice to the conductor of the passenger’s intention to alight.
    f 1. See Carriers, vol. 9, Cent. Dig. § 1228%.
    Appeal from City Court of New York, Trial Term.
    Action by Margaret McCarthy against the Interurban Street Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, and from an order denying a new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed.
    An action was brought by plaintiff against the defendant to recover damages for injuries sustained by her on July 8, 1902, while she was leaving a car operated by the defendant on Second avenue at Twenty-Third street, Manhattan borough. Plaintiff boarded an open south-bound car with her little daughter and son, and paid 10 cents car fare, and received two transfers from defendant’s conductor, for purpose of transferring to a Twenty-Third street cross-town car. At the south side of Twenty-Third street and Second avenue the car came to a full stop, and plaintiff started to alight, and, before she had completely left the car, the car started forward, and she was thrown to the street.
    Argued before FREEDMAN, P. J., and TRUAX and SCOTT, JJ.
    Bayard H. Ames and F. Angelo Gaynor, for appellant.
    Hieronimus A. Herold, for respondent.
   SCOTT, J.

The allegation of the complaint is that “the plaintiff signaled for the car to stop at Twenty-Third street, and. the car came to a full stop.” There is not a particle of evidence that the plaintiff gave any signal to the conductor, or that he knew of had reason to know that plaintiff intended to alight. In one place the plaintiff testifies that she did not know where the conductor was when she attempted to get off. Afterwards she said that the conductor was standing on the running board of the car, near the front, and in front of plaintiff, and was looking downtown, so that she saw only the back of his head. This testimony is quite inconsistent with any knowledge on the conductor’s part that plaintiff intended to get off the car. The plaintiff thus wholly failed to show notice to the conductor, either in the particular manner alleged in the complaint, or in any other manner.

The judgment must be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to appellant to abide the event. All concur.