Holbrook v. Utica & Schenectady Railroad
New York Supreme Court
Motion for a new trial. The action was brought to recover damages for an injury sustained by Mrs. Holbrook, while a passenger upon the defendants’ cars.
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Motion for a new trial. The action was brought to recover damages for an injury sustained by Mrs. Holbrook, while a passenger upon the defendants’ cars. The complaint alleged, that, on the 22d of May, 1849, Mrs. Holbrook, having paid her fare from Utica to Schenectady, and while riding in one of the defendants’ cars, within three or fours miles of Little Falls, in the county of Herkimer, the car in which she was riding, by and through the mere carelessness and negligence of the defendants, came partly in conflict and^contact with another car of the defendants, sometimes called a floating car,…
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court, Harris, J.
If the evidence was such as to make it proper to submit the case to the jury at all, the charge was sufficiently favorable to the defendants. The only question therefore is, whether the plaintiffs should have been nonsuited.
The defendants, when they undertook to carry Mrs. Holbrook, did not become insurers against unavoidable accidents. All they agreed was, that they would take all the care to prevent injury, which the nature of their business would allow. There are perils incident to every mode of conveyance. Of these, every traveler must take the risk. All he can ask…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Stokes v. SaltonstallSupreme Court of the United States · 1839
- McKinney v. NeilU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Ohio · 1840
3Cited by8 opinions
- Sherlock v. AllingIndiana Supreme Court · 1873
- Dougherty v. Missouri Pacific RailroadMissouri Court of Appeals · 1881
- Clapp v. Hudson River Rail RoadNew York Supreme Court · 1854
- Armour v. GolkowskaAppellate Court of Illinois · 1901
- Terry v. New York Central Rail RoadNew York Supreme Court · 1855
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