Opinion
January 24, 1947.
Appeal from Supreme Court, Bronx County.
This case is close on its facts and we are not free from doubt as to liability. Taking the evidence most favorably to the infant plaintiff, however, as we are obliged to take it on a verdict in his favor, we find evidence that the infant plaintiff ran at a diagonal across the street for a matter of fifteen or twenty feet beyond cars parked along the curb and that the defendant driving at what might be found to be an excessive speed through a district crowded with school children, without sounding his horn, struck infant plaintiff with the right rear fender of his truck and then travelled fifty or sixty feet before stopping. There is no direct evidence that the infant plaintiff was ever in front of defendant's truck or within his vision, but the evidence stated above, considering the speed at which defendant was driving and the speed at which infant plaintiff was running and the distance covered by him in the street before being hit, would warrant a finding that the infant plaintiff was running in front of the truck and within the vision of defendant so that the latter should have seen the infant plaintiff. As one witness testified: "* * * suddenly the boy ran between two cars. Then a car came and the boy was running towards Westchester Avenue and ran 15 feet before the car hit him. The boy was running toward Westchester Avenue and the back fender hit him."
We, therefore, sustain the verdict. We are satisfied, however, that the medical testimony in support of infant plaintiff's claim of permanent injury is not well founded and that the verdict in infant plaintiff's favor is excessive. The judgment will be set aside and a new trial ordered, therefore, with costs to the appellant to abide the event, unless the infant plaintiff consents to a reduction in the judgment in his favor to $2,690.84 in which event the judgment as so modified is affirmed, without costs.
The verdict in this case is contrary to the overwhelming weight of the credible evidence. The accident in which the infant plaintiff was injured was caused solely by his own negligence. No negligence whatever on the part of this defendant was shown. The driver of a vehicle passing through a street where children are on the sidewalk should not be expected to sound his horn for the entire length of the block. The majority opinion seems to indicate that under the circumstances here presented the horn should be sounded even though no children or other pedestrians are in the roadway.
I dissent and vote to reverse and dismiss the complaint.
Cohn, Callahan, Peck and Van Voorhis, JJ., concur in Per Curiam opinion; Martin, P.J., dissents in opinion.
Judgment reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to the appellant to abide the event, unless the infant plaintiff, by his guardian ad litem, stipulates to reduce the judgment as entered in his favor to the sum of $2,690.84, in which event the judgment as so modified is affirmed, without costs. Settle order on notice.