Matter of Cooley v. Heaney Co., Inc.

P. J. Heaney Co., Inc., was in the building material business, having a big yard and freight siding and a boat landing on the Bronx river or Westchester creek. At the end of the dock or boat landing was a stringpiece along the water front about a city block long and a foot and one-half high.

A young man, John Cooley, about 28 years of age, was employed as a bag cleaner. He worked in a shed on the place about one hundred feet from the dock cleaning bags. He had no other work to do. This was his job. John Cooley owned a second-hand Overland car which he used to take his family, wife and two…