Court Opinion

ID: 9690222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:57:25.896399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:54.244742
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(ídissenting in part). I dissent only from that part of the majority opinion which relates to contributory negligence of plaintiff’s intestate.
The thirty by thirty-eight foot opening in the roof had existed for two weeks prior to the accident and was well known to plaintiff’s intestate. It seems to me that the situation is similar to those cases in which stevedore employees have been held contributorily negligent as a matter of law, who have fallen into open and unguarded hatches on vessels upon which they were working. Brown v. Associated Operating Co. (1915), 165 App. Div. 702, 151 N. Y. Supp. 531, order *443resettled in 167 App. Div. 942, 152 N. Y. Supp. 1101, and judgment affirmed in (1917) 222 N. Y. 566, 118 N. E. 1053; and other cases cited in annotation in 44 A. L. R. 1129.
While I believe plaintiff’s intestate was contributorily negligent as a matter of law, the question of comparative negligence still remains a jury question, because a jury might well be warranted in concluding that the negligence of plaintiff’s intestate was less than that of the defendant in failing to guard the opening.
I would therefore reverse the judgment and remand the cause for retrial.