Pool v. Brown

• Decision Date: 05 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 94.,94.
• Parties: POOL v. BROWN.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

98 A. 262

POOL

v. BROWN.

No. 94.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 5, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Essex County.

Action by George F. Pool against Rufus Donaldson Brown. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Peirce & Hoover, of Newark, for appellant. M. Casewell Heine, of Newark, for appellee.

KALISCH, J. The appellant appeals from a judgment of nonsuit. His contention is that the nonsuit was improperly ordered because the facts, developed by the testimony in the case, presented issues which should have been submitted by the court to the decision of the jury.

The facts, briefly stated, are these: The appellant was struck and injured, by respondent's automobile, while he was crossing Halsey street, in Newark. Halsey street, from curb to curb, is about 30 feet in width, and runs north and south. Bleecker street, about equally as narrow as Halsey street, runs at right angles into Halsey street from the west, and terminates at Halsey street. On the easterly side of Halsey street stands a large department store, a part of the rear of which faces Bleecker street. The rear of the store has several entrances and exits on Halsey street. The appellant in the daytime came out of one of the rear exits of the store and started to walk north on Halsey street until he reached a point on that street which was in a direct line of the southerly sidewalk of Bleecker street, when he made preparations to cross the street. At that time, according to the appellant's testimony, there was a top wagon of the department store standing, backed up to the curb, which wagon extended into the street about 12 feet. To the south of the wagon stood an automobile, leaving ample space between the two vehicles for a crossing by persons desiring to cross the street at that point. While on the sidewalk and before starting to cross, the appellant looked to the north and observed a team of horses pulling a team wagon, with a colored driver, sitting on a high seat, driving the team slowly in the center of the street, in a southerly direction, about 50 or 60 feet away. The appellant then started to cross through the open space referred to, his view to the north for the distance of 12 feet being shut out by the top wagon standing there, and, when he reached a line of vision to the north, he again looked that way and only observed the same team of horses with the colored driver, which were then about 30 or 40 feet away. He then looked to the south and saw nothing approaching and then took a step forward, about 3 feet, when he was struck by the respondent's automobile, which came from the north, and which the appellant says he did not see at the time he looked in that direction. There was also testimony to the effect that the driver of the automobile gave no signal or warning of any kind of the approach of the automobile.

The suggestion has been made that, since it appeared that the appellant had only succeeded in taking a single step forward after he had a view to the north, when he was struck by the automobile coming from that direction, it is a legal presumption that if he had looked with any degree of care he could not have failed to see the automobile so close to him that the danger of attempting to cross in front of it would have been apparent to an ordinarily prudent person in the exercise of reasonable care for his own safety. We do not think that the testimony justifies such a presumption, either of law or fact. But this claim will be considered later when we reach the topic of the respondent's contention that the appellant was negligent, and that his negligent conduct contributed to his injury.

At the very outset, it is highly important that it should not escape observation that the situation, presented by the facts under consideration, relates to a pedestrian in the exercise of a lawful right to cross a public highway and the driver of a vehicle who had no superior legal right in the use of the street. Under such circumstances, the law imposes reciprocal obligations. Those reciprocal obligations are the offspring of elementary and familiar legal principles, which, by reason of...