Petersen v. Forty-Five Nevins Street Corp.

The plaintiff claims prejudicial error for allowing evidence upon trial of his repeated falls elsewhere *179prior to the instant accident, though the jury was instructed that it may consider such prior incidents for the sole purpose of evaluating the manner in which plaintiff moved about relative to his long-existing cerebral palsy condition.

It seemed to me during trial, as it does now, that the rule which excludes evidence of prior accidents, except upon proof of similarity of circumstances (Flansburg v. Town of Elbridge, 205 N. Y. 423) and evidence of a person’s habitual conduct (Noonan v.…