[Download] "Williams v. New Jersey-New York Transit Co." by United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Williams v. New Jersey-New York Transit Co.
- Author : United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- Release Date : January 18, 1940
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 64 KB
Description
Defendant appeals from a judgement for the plaintiff awarding her damages for personal injuries, suffered while she was a passenger in the defendants bus. She boarded the bus at Union City, New Jersey, and sat down in the second seat on the right-hand side of the aisle; a fellow passenger was beside her, nearer the window. Shortly after she was seated, he arose from his seat and put a brief case, which he had been holding in his lap, in the baggage rack overhead. After the bus ahd gone about a mile, this fell down and struck the plaintiff on the right side of her head, causing the injuries for which she sued. The bus had been swerving and twisting so violently that the plaintiff had been several times thrown against her fellow passenger; and a jury might properly have found that this caused the brief case to fall. The rack was made of a row of eight metal bars, half an inch thick, spaced two and onehalf inches apart, running lengthwise of the bus, and together making a substantially horizontal shelf extending from the side of the bus inwards towards the aisle. At the inner edge of this shelf was a similar bar, raised above the level of the rest, and between this bar and the inmost of the eight bars was a space of three and onequarter inches.The rack was supported from the roof by metal struts at its inner edge, which was at a point above the middle of the seat that the plaintiff occupied. At the conclusion the defendant moved for a directed verdict, which the court denied; the sole question of fact which he submitted to the jury was whether it was negligent for the defendant to maintain a baggage rack "in the condition which has been described during the testimony."