Case ID: ny_224/html/0643-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael Killilea, Respondent, v. J. Pierpont Morgan, Appellant.
    
      Killilea v. Morgan, 178 App. Div. 924, affirmed.
    (Argued October 14, 1918;
    decided October 29, 1918.)
    Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered May 10, 1917, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict in an action to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff through the negligence of defendant, his employer. Defendant had a country home on a small island off the north shore of Long Island. It was approached by a causeway. On July 3, 1915, he and his family were attacked and he himself shot. Thereafter guards were maintained in and about the place. On the evening of July twelfth, one McGregor, superintendent of the place, caused a heavy rope to be stretched across the causeway. No light was displayed to warn of the obstruction. The plaintiff, who had left the island before dark to go to an adjoining village, returned about eight-thirty o’clock riding a bicycle. He struck the rope and was thrown to the ground receiving the injuries complained of.
    
      Percy D. Trafford and Peter B. Olney, Jr., for appellant.
    
      Bertrand L. Pettigrew, Henry A. Uterhart and Charles T. McCarthy for respondent.
   Per Curiam.

We think that McGregor, the superintendent of the estate, must be deemed the alter ego of the defendant, and that for his negligence in failing to correct the‘dangerous condition after notice of its existence, the defendant is responsible (Henry v. Hudson & M. R. R. Co., 201 N. Y. 140; Connolly v. Hall & Grant Const. Co., 192 N. Y. 182, 187).

The judgment should be affirmed with costs.

Hiscock, Ch. J., Chase, Hogan, Cardozo, Pound, McLaughlin and Andrews, JJ., concur.

Judgment affirmed.