Case Name: JORDAN v. CITY OF NEW YORK
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1899-11-10
Citations: 60 N.Y.S. 696
Docket Number: 
Parties: JORDAN v. CITY OF NEW YORK.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 60
Pages: 696–702

Head Matter:
JORDAN v. CITY OF NEW YORK.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
November 10, 1899.)
1. Municipal Corporations—Driveways—Negligence.
A properly pavea driveway was built by a city across a sidewalk to permit the driving of vehicles of ordinary width to and from private premises abutting on the street. A pile of paving stones upon the sidewalk extended to one side of the driveway. On the other side, near the curbing, a firmly-set hub stone projected about 18 inches above the sidewalk. The width of the driveway between the stone pile and the hub stone was 8 feet and 1 inch. Plaintiff’s intestate, a truck driver, used a truck 7 feet wide. As he drove over the driveway the front wheel struck the huh stone, so that he was thrown into the street and fatally injured. Eeld, in the absence of any regulation as to the width of such driveways, or any showing that trucks of this extreme width were accustomed to he driven over it, that the city was not guilty of negligence.
2. Same—Contributory Negligence—Knowledge oe Danger.
If one who is familiar with a public driveway, made reasonably safe for vehicles of ordinary width, attempts to drive a truck of extreme width over it, he assumes the risk necessarily involved in the act.
Barrett, J., dissenting.
Appeal from trial term, New York county.
Action by Mary Jordan, administratrix, etc., against the city of New York. From a judgment dismissing the complaint (55 N. Y. Supp. 716), and an order denying a new trial, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before VAN BRUNT, P. J., and BARRETT, RUMSEY, McLAUGHLIN, and INGRAHAM, JJ.
George S. Daniels, for appellant.
Theodore Connoly, for respondent.

Opinion:
RUMSEY, J.
The action was brought to recover damages for an alleged negligent act of the defendant, causing the death of the plaintiff's husband and intestate. At the trial, upon the opening of counsel, the complaint was dismissed on the motion of the defendant. A motion for a new trial was denied, and from the judgment entered upon the dismissal of the complaint, and the order denying the motion for a new trial, this appeal is taken.
In examining the case it must be taken for granted that every fact stated by the plaintiff in his opening would have been susceptible of proof, and the question to be determined is whether, taking all these facts as true, and drawing from them every fair inference which a reasonable man might draw, do the facts stated tend to show a cause of action in behalf of the plaintiff against the defendant, so that, if the case had been presented to a jury, they might fairly have found a verdict in her favor? The husband of the plaintiff, because of whose death this action is brought, was a truck driver. On the 28th of February, 1898, having laden his truck with a load of scrap iron, he had gone to the premises of the Consolidated Gas Company, at Seventeenth street and Eleventh avenue, for the purpose of weighing his load. He entered the premises of the gas company on Thirteenth avenue, and drove his truck to the scales. After the weighing was finished, he started to go into the street by a driveway that led out to Eleventh avenue, over the premises of the gas company, and approached the street between two buildings, which extended up to the boundary of the driveway on each side, and out to the sidewalk in front. From the sidewalk to the curbing of the street, the driveway was paved with cobble stones. On the right side as one went out there had existed for a long time a pile of paving stones upon the sidewalk, which extended up to the line of the driveway, some few of the stones projecting a few inches over the drive. On the left side, and in a line with the side of the building which formed the boundary of the driveway, or the gas company's premises, was a hub stone, projecting about 18 inches above the sidewalk, and firmly set in the street at the end of the driveway. This driveway was a part of the public street, except that ordinarily it would have been part of the sidewalk. It had been used for years as a driveway, and was paved in such way that it could be used for that purpose. The driveway was 8 feet and 1 inch wide, which was the distance between the pile of. stone on the south side and the hub stone on the north side of the walk. The plaintiff's intestate had driven through this driveway with his truck once before on that day, and was aware of the situation of affairs at that place. The truck which he was using was 7 feet from the outside rim of the tire on one side to the outside rim of the tire on the other, so that as he went through the driveway he had but 1 foot and 1 inch more than sufficient room to pass with his truck; and, as he was driving out upon the sidewalk at the time the injury was received, from some cause, which is not known his left forward wheel struck the hub stone with such force that he was thrown into the street, and received injuries which caused his death. Upon this state of affairs it was claimed by the plaintiff that the cit^ was negligent, because it maintained for several years prior to the* accident this hub stone at the corner of the driveway, which was an obstruction to the street, which served no purpose, and which was entirely unnecessary, and which so narrowed the driveway that it made it unsafe for persons who had occasion to use it. The defendant, on the contrary, claimed that it was guilty of no negligence in maintaining the driveway as it was originally laid out; that no duty rested upon it to do any more with regard to that driveway than to maintain it in a reasonably safe condition as it was originally built, and that, if the plaintiff's intestate saw fit to attempt to use the driveway in the condition in which he knew that it was, he took the risk of his attempt; and that his administratrix is not in a position to say that his death took .place solely because of its negligence.
In the examination of the question it must be assumed that the driveway was a part of the public street, that it was originally laid out and paved, and that it was maintained by the city for that purpose as a part of the street; these facts having been stated in the opening,—however far from the actual truth they may be. It is not claimed that the surface of the driveway was not in a reasonably safe condition for use, but it is said that upon the facts stated a jury would have been justified in finding that the driveway was not of sufficient width to serve the purposes for which it was intended, and therefore the city was negligent in thus laying it out. There is no ordinance or regulation which establishes the width of a driveway across the sidewalk for the purpose of permitting one to go over the street into the premises of a private individual. All that any one is required to do, who has occasion to lay out such a driveway, is to use reasonable care to make it reasonably safe for those persons who have occasion to use it. In so laying it out he is called upon only to provide for carriages of such width as are ordinarily used. The width of such carriages is a matter of common knowledge, of which the courts' may take judicial notice, as they may take notice of every other matter which is ordinarily known to mankind. Isaacson v. Railroad Co., 94 N. Y. 278; Steers v. Steamship Co., 57 N. Y. 1; Pearce v. Langfit, 101 Pa. St. 512. That width of tlm track of carriages as well as of railroad cars, as is well known, is 4 feet 8^? inches, and whoever has occasion to lay out a driveway is called upon only to lay it with reference to use by a carriage of that width, unless he has reason to know that Other carriages of greater width are accustomed to be driven upon it. Undoubtedly a person is at liberty to use the highway with whatever vehicle he may see fit to drive upon it which is fit for that purpose, but if he sees fit to go upon the public street with a vehicle of unusual construction or of unusual weight, if the highway which is built for ordinary carriages and to sustain an ordinary weight should prove too narrow for his carriage, or should break down under the extraordinary weight which he sees flt to put upon it, he cannot insist that the city is negligent. Such is the rule which is laid down in regard to traction engines and carriages of such weight passing over ordinary highways, and the same rule should be applied in regard to all highways. So, therefore, when the city built this driveway,—if it did build it, as alleged in the opening,—it was called upon simply to make provision for a carriage of the ordinary width which people were accustomed to use; and if the carriage which was in use at the time the accident happened did, by reason of its extreme width, take up so large a proportion of this driveway as that the driveway, which, for a carriage of ordinary width would have been safe, became unsafe for this carriage because of its extreme width, the city was not liable, in the absence of proof that trucks of this extreme width were accustomed to be driven over it It is well settled that the existence of a hub stone like this at the intersection of two roads is not negligence, unless it is so placed as to unduly reduce the width of the highway, even if it is negligence then. Dougherty v. Trustees, 159 N. Y. 154, 58 N. E. 799. Within the facts which were offered to be proved in this case, the cases above cited, and many others which are cited in the opinion in Dougherty v. Trustees, supra, establish, we think, that there was no negligence on the part of the city in constructing and maintaining this driveway.
We think, too, that the plaintiff's intestate, when he undertook to drive through this passage with a truck of such extreme width, being, as the opening shows, familiar with the passage, took upon himself the risk, if there was any, which was necessarily involved in that act. He knew the width of the driveway; he knew the condition of its surface, which, as we must conclude, was such as to make the driveway in that regard reasonably safe for use;' he knew the width of his own truck, and how much space there would be to spare when he attempted to pass between the pile of stone and the hub stone; and, in attempting to go over that passage, he was just as well aware of the apparent danger, if there was any, as it was possible for a man to be. If it was not safe for him to attempt to drive that truck over that passageway in that condition, he knew it, and, if he attempted to drive it, he certainly took the risks himself. The case is not within the case of Schafer v. City of New York, 154 N. Y. 466, 48 N. E. 749. In that case the so-called obstruction was left precisely in the middle of the highway, so that it was quite possible that one using the highway, even with due care, would run upon it. The court held that, because the obstruction was in the middle of the highway, a person attempting to use the highway was not precluded from attempting to pass, and if he did attempt to pass, using reasonable care, he was not guilty of contributory negligence, if, without his own carelessness, he ran upon the obstruction; but in that case the court said that the question was a very close one, and the case was not decided with out dissent. In this case, however, there was no obstruction in the driveway, but, so far as appears, that part of the road was in perfect condition. The obstruction, if it was an obstruction, was out of the track, and the plaintiff's intestate did not keep in the track which was provided for him to drive over.
The judgment and order must be affirmed, with costs to the respondent. All concur, except BARRETT, J., who dissents.