LaRue v. Tiernan

260 A.D. 337, 22 N.Y.S.2d 209, 1940 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4587
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJuly 2, 1940
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 260 A.D. 337 (LaRue v. Tiernan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
LaRue v. Tiernan, 260 A.D. 337, 22 N.Y.S.2d 209, 1940 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4587 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinions

Schenck, J.

This is an appeal by the defendants Francis Borrman and Sarah Borrman from a judgment in favor of plaintiff LaRue for damages for personal injuries and from a judgment in favor of plaintiff Tiernan for property damage. Appellants make no claim that the verdict in the case of plaintiff LaRue is excessive, it appearing that she sustained severe injuries.

These actions arise out of an accident which occurred on a highway in the hamlet of Norfolk on October 21, 1938, at about seven-fifteen p. M. This highway runs approximately north and south, the- center consisting of a macadam pavement twenty feet wide, and at the place of the accident the highway is sixty-six feet wide, [339]*339measured from property line to property line. There is a sidewalk along the westerly side of the road. The home of plaintiff LaRue is- /on the west side of the road. On the night in question the defendant Sarah Borrman parked her automobile on the west side of the highway immediately in front of the LaRue home. The car was facing north with its headlights lighted. There is a sharp dispute as to whether the right wheels of the Borrman car were upon the paved portion of the road. Plaintiff Tiernan was driving south at about the time plaintiff LaRue started to walk along the west side of the Borrman car in order to pass in the rear of it and get into the front seat from the east side of the car. He testified that when about 200 feet from the scene of the accident he saw a set of headlights; he proceeded a short distance when he saw another set of headlights come out on the east side of the first headlights. He testified that he was blinded by these two sets of headlights and to avoid an accident he pulled his car to the right of the highway and struck plaintiff LaRue, who was walking southerly along the westerly side of the Borrman car. When questioned why he did not drive between the two sets of headlights, he answered that there was not sufficient room.

The real question here concerns the charge of the trial court. He stated to the jury the provisions of subdivision 6 of section 86 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, and then charged as follows: How, according to the undisputed evidence, Mrs. Borrman stopped her car over alongside the left side of that boundary or curb in violation of the written command and requirement of the statute which I have read to you, and that is so, I charge you, whether she stopped her car while the wheels were partly on, while the right wheels were somewhat on, or whether all four wheels were completely off the actual middle or paved part of the roadway, or pavement consisting of the roadway itself. In other words, I say to you that on the undisputed facts of this case, Mrs. Borrman, in stopping her car wherever she did, * * * according to the evidence presented here, violated this section of the statute which I have read, and I say to you that that statute passed by the Legislature, enacted into law, was designed for general public safety upon the highway. It was designed in the interests of the safety oi all persons lawfully in or upon the highway and lawfully using the highway for any purpose, and I charge you that that violation of the statute upon the part of Mrs. Borrman was a negligent act. * * * ” To this portion of the charge exception was taken by defendants.

The sections of the Vehicle and Traffic Law pertinent here are as follows:

[340]*340Subdivision 6 of section 86. No vehicle shall be stopped with its left side to the curb, except in such streets as may be designated as one-way traffic streets, and where road excavation or other legalized obstruction prevent the operation of this regulation.”

Subdivision 4 of section 2. “ Curb ’ shall include the boundaries of the roadway, whether marked by curbstone or not so marked.”

Subdivision 3 of section 2. “ ‘ Street ’ or ‘ roadway ’ shall include that part of the public highway intended for vehicular travel.”

As I view it, this case comes squarely within the doctrine laid down in Martin v. Herzog (228 N. Y. 164). While that case was decided in 1920, it seems that the holding there has been accepted by the Court of Appeals as late as 1939. (Tedia v. Ellman, 280 N. Y. 124.) The fact that the defendant Sarah Borrman parked her car on the wrong side of the highway would not constitute negligence unless it is found that there was a causal connection between the negligence and the injury. Here we have that causal connection. In Martin v. Herzog (supra) the plaintiff’s intestate was driving a buggy along the highway without a light as required by the statute. The defendant requested the court to charge that the absence of a light on the vehicle was prima facie evidence of contributory negligence. This request was refused and the jury instructed that they might consider the absence of a light as some evidence of negligence. The court also charged that “ the fact that the plaintiff’s intestate was driving without a light is not negligence in itself.” Judge Cardozo, writing for the court, said (at p. 168): We think the unexcused omission of the statutory signals is more than some evidence of negligence. It is negligence in itself. Lights are intended for the guidance and protection of other travelers on the highway (Highway Law, sec. 329a). By the very terms of the hypothesis, to omit, willfully or heedlessly, the safeguards prescribed by law for the benefit of another that he may be preserved in life or limb, is to fall short of the standard of diligence to which those who live in organized society are under a duty to conform. That, we think, is now the established rule in this State.”

I cannot find that the ruling in Martin v. Herzog was in any wise changed or modified by the case of Tedla v. Ellman (supra). There, two pedestrians were walking in an easterly direction on the right-hand, or southerly, side of the road in violation of subdivision 6 of section 85 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, which provides that pedestrians shall keep to the left of the center line, or, in other words, face traffic. The court there held (O’Brien and Finch, JJ., dissenting on the authority of Martin v. Herzog) that they were not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter [341]*341of law simply because the statute was violated where it appeared at the time of the accident that traffic along the northerly side of the roadway was “ very heavy ” while traffic on the southerly side of the roadway was light, and that it would not be held as a matter of law in choosing to walk on the roadway where the traffic was light that plaintiffs were guilty of contributory negligence and that it is unreasonable to ascribe to the Legislature an intention that pedestrians should be charged with negligence as a matter of law for acting as prudence dictates. In that case Judge Lehman pointed out that the Legislature when it enacted the statute presumably knew that the courts had established the general principle that omission by a plaintiff of a safeguard, prescribed by statute, against a recognized danger constitutes negligence as a matter of law.

Then the Legislature may by statute prescribe additional safeguards and may define duty and standard of care in rigid terms; and when the Legislature has spoken, the standard of the care required is no longer what the reasonably prudent' man would do under the circumstances but what the Legislature has commanded.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
260 A.D. 337, 22 N.Y.S.2d 209, 1940 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4587, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/larue-v-tiernan-nyappdiv-1940.