Case Name: Lawrence Murphy Appellant, v. The Interurban Street Railway Company, Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1907-11
Citations: 56 Misc. 598
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lawrence Murphy Appellant, v. The Interurban Street Railway Company, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 56
Pages: 598–599

Head Matter:
Lawrence Murphy Appellant, v. The Interurban Street Railway Company, Respondent.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
November, 1907.)
Street railways — Operation — Injuries to persons on or near tracks and persons crossing tracks — Contributory negligence — Duty to stop, look and listen.
Where a person, about to cross, a street through which cars ran, before leaving the sidewalk, looked in both directions and saw no car within a block and then started across the street and was struck by a car as he stepped across the first rail, and it appears that the car approached rapidly without any bell being rung and was not stopped after it struck him until near the middle of the block, it cannot be said as matter of law that he was guilty of contributory negligence.
Appeal by the plaintiff from an order of the City Court of the city of Hew York, denying a motion for a new trial.
Rudolph Marks, for appellant.
Bayard H. Ames, for respondent.

Opinion:
Gildersleeve, J.
The complaint in this action was dismissed upon the plaintiff's own testimony, aiid from an order denying a motion for a new trial the plaintiff appeals. Under such circumstances the plaintiff's testimony must, with all the reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, be taken as true. He testified that he lived near One Hundred and Twenty-fourth street on Second avenue, that he left his house at seven a. m., intending to take a south bound car on the avenue, that he walked to the comer of One Hundred and Twenty-fourth street, and while at the corner and on the sidewalk he, then being about to cross the avenue, looked both ways for approaching cars. Looking north, he saw a south bound car, between One Hundred and Twenty-fifth and One Hundred and Twenty-sixth streets, and looking south he saw a north bound car at the corner of One Hundred and Twenty-third street and Second avenue standing still. When he started to cross the street, along the north crosswalk, this car was a full block away. He proceeded and was hit by the north bound car as he stepped over the first or easterly rail. He estimates the distance from the curb to the easterly rail of the car track to he from. eighteen to twenty feet. He was walking " the same as any one else would to get across the street." He is supported in his version of how the accident happened by at least two witnesses; and it was shown that the car approached rapidly without any hell being rung, and that it was not stopped, after it hit the plaintiff, until near the middle of the block above One Hundred and Twenty-fourth street. Hnder the facts disclosed by the testimony, we do not think it can fairly he said that, as a matter of law, the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, or that the defendant was free therefrom.
Levehtritt and Erlanger, JJ., concur.
Judgment reversed and new trial ordered with costs to appellant to abide event.