Case ID: misc_125/html/0255-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Herman Pulerwitz, Appellant, v. Commonwealth Fuel Co., Inc., Respondent.
    Supreme Court, Appellate Term, First Department,
    June 22, 1925.
    Negligence — action for injuries suffered when plaintiff fell into coal hole in sidewalk — court charged that plaintiff was bound to watch sidewalk —• court should have charged duty of defendant to give warning.
    In an action to recover damages suffered by the plaintiff when he fell into a coal hole in the sidewalk, in which the court charged that the plaintiff was bound to watch where he was going, it was prejudicial error to refuse to charge, at the request of the plaintiff, that the jury might find that the defendant was guilty of negligence if it failed to warn pedestrians against the open coal hole.
    Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment of the Municipal Court, Borough of Manhattan, Fourth District, entered in favor of the defendant.
    
      Louis Zimmerman, for the appellant.
    
      F. W. W. Ireland, for the respondent.
   Per Curiam:

In face of the charge by the learned trial court that plaintiff was under obligation as a pedestrian on the sidewalk to watch where he was going, it was manifest error to refuse to charge plaintiff’s request that the jury might find that failure on the part of defendant to warn pedestrians against the coal hole from which it had removed the cover constituted negligence.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with thirty dollars costs to appellant to abide the event.

All concur; present, Bijur, Mullan and Proskauer, JJ.