Case Name: Anne Gaffney, Resp't, v. Brooklyn City Railroad Company, App'lt
Court: Brooklyn City Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1893-11-27
Citations: 58 N.Y. St. Rep. 119
Docket Number: 
Parties: Anne Gaffney, Resp’t, v. Brooklyn City Railroad Company, App’lt.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York State Reporter
Volume: 58
Pages: 119–120

Head Matter:
Anne Gaffney, Resp’t, v. Brooklyn City Railroad Company, App’lt.
(Brooklyn City Court, General Term,
Filed November 27, 1893.)
Negligence—Street railroad.
Where, at a transfer station, the company uses chains when it does not permit passengers to enter a car, the fact that they are down on the side next the other track, is an invitation to passengers to enter the car on that side.
Appeal from a judgment entered on the verdict in favor of plaintiff, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial.
Morris & Whitehouse, for app’lt; James & Thomas H. Troy, for resp’t.

Opinion:
Clement, C. J.
The questions invdlved on this appeal seem, to be mainly of fact. The plaintiff, and two witnesses called in her behalf, testified that they were passengers on a train of the Ft. Hamilton line, which stopped in Third avenue, in this city, at Twenty-fifth street; that the passengers were given transfer tickets, and many of them walked a short distance, to take a Hamilton avenue car standing on the same track ; that many of the passengers got on the car, which was an open one, on the side nearest the sidewalk, but that ten or fifteen went on the other side; that plaintiff was about to get upon the car step, when a car came down on the other track at a rapid rate of speed, and struck her. The only witness for the company who saw the injury was the motorman. He testified that the plaintiff made a dart from behind the car, and jumped for the second stanchion, about four-feet from the rear of the Hamilton avenue car, and fell under his-car. It appeared that the company used chains on the sides to prevent passengers from boarding cars, and that the chains, at the time, were down on both sides of the car. The place in question was a transfer station, and, as the company used chains when they did not permit passengers to enter a car, the fact that the same were down on the side next the other track was an invitation to passengers to enter the car on that side. We are also of opinion that the motorman, when he saw that passengers were-entering a car at the station, was bound to exercise more care than when passing another car in motion, and particularly when he knew that the company invited passengers to enter on the side of the car near the other track. The weight of evidence was on the side of plaintiff, and we can see no legal reason why the verdict of the jury should be disturbed.
Judgment and order denying new trial affirmed, with costs.