Case Name: Mary E. Corson, Appellant, v. The City of New York, Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1906-06-15
Citations: 113 A.D. 679
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mary E. Corson, Appellant, v. The City of New York, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 113
Pages: 679–680

Head Matter:
Mary E. Corson, Appellant, v. The City of New York, Respondent.
Second Department,
June 15, 1906.
Negligence—defective sidewalk — evidence — proof of prior accidents.
When a pedestrian injured by reason of a defect in a city street has on a second trial given clear and definite evidence of numerous prior accidents caused by the same defect, it is error to dismiss the complaint.
Appeai by the plaintiff, Mary E. Corson, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the defendant, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 20th day of March, 1905, upon the dismissal of the complaint by direction of the court after a trial at the Kings County Trial Term. .
Henry A. Powell, for the appellant.
James W. Covert [ James D. Bell and John J. Delany with him on the brief], for the respondent.

Opinion:
Miller, J.:
The questions involved in this case were fully considered upon the former appeal (78 App. Div. 481) and we desire to add. nothing to what was then said by the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Willard Bartlett, except that the case of Mullins v. Siegel-Cooper Co. (183 N. Y. 129) is authority for the correctness of the conclusion there reached that proof of numerous prior accidents caused by the defect complained of would have required the submission of the case to the jury. The criticism then made by this court upon the indefinite character of the proof of such former accidents has now been met. It was,, therefore, error to dismiss the complaint, and the judgment should be reversed, with costs, and a judgment ordered for,the plaintiff upon the special verdict, in accordance with section 1187 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Jenks, J., concurred in result; Hooker and Rich, JJ., concurred; Gaynor, J., concurred in a separate memorandum.