Meyer v. Public Service Railway Co.
Meyer v. Public Service Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is the defendant’s appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff in a suit .for damages caused hy the alleged negligence of the defendant.
It is contended that the trial judge erroneously refused to nonsuit the plaintiff.
When the motion was made it was open to a jury to find from the evidence, if they saw fit, the following matters of fact: The plaintiff’s driver was in charge of the plaintiff’s horses and wagon and was performing his duties as a garbage collector in East Orange. The driver stopped his team on Main street at a point between the curb and the trolley track of the defendant company. Shortly thereafter a trolley car of the defendant, in charge of a motorman and a conductor, came along and stopped beside the team. It stopped there
It was urged at the trial, and is here argued, that such state of the proofs did not justify an inference of negligence upon the part of the defendant, and that, therefore, the nonsuit should have been granted.
But we cannot yield to that contention.
It is the duty of a street railroad company, through its servants in control of its cars, to exercise reasonable care to avoid collision with animals and vehicles near its tracks, and the company is liable for the injuries resulting, if, through the inattention or carelessness of its servants a ear collides with an animal or vehicle so near the track that the car could not pass without striking it. 36 Gyc. 1505.
We think that the question whether the conduct of the conductor, in leaving his ordinary position on the car, applying the power and starting the car in the absence of the motorman, was the exercise of reasonable care to avoid a collision with the plaintiff’s team in the circumstances, was at least a question about which fair-minded men might honestly differ, and hence the nonsuit was properly refused.
This disposes of the only question argued meriting consideration.
The judgment below will be affirmed, with costs.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.