Citation Numbers: 19 Misc. 2d 519
Judges: Crisona
Filed Date: 9/30/1959
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 2/5/2022
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by a six-year-old infant and for loss of services and medical expenses incurred by his father, the defendants move to dismiss the complaint for legal insufficiency.
It appears that at about 5:45 o’clock in the afternoon of June 24, 1958, the defendants parked their 1954 Ford truck in front of premises 520 West 47th Street, County, City and State of New York, located in a no parking zone. At or about that time the infant plaintiff was lawfully upon the sidewalk near said premises playing with several other children, all of whom were under the age of 10 years; that with knowledge that children were in the habit of playing in and about their motor vehicle and other auto
In a case such as this the defendants may not be cast in damages unless it appears (1) that the truck attracted children; (2) that it was inherently dangerous; and (3) that the defendants knew or ought to have known both of these things. (Parkes v. New York Tel. Co., 120 Misc. 459, 460, affd. 207 App. Div. 869.) In the setting in which this accident occurred it cannot be said that the unattended truck owned by the defendants, parked on West 47th Street, New York County, was an inherently dangerous object. In Maloney v. Kaplan (233 N. Y. 426, 428) the Court of Appeals said: “Motor vehicles are commonly left standing in the street without extraordinary precautions being taken to prevent interference with them. They are not regarded as dangerous instrumentalities, but the possibility of danger from careless handling is obvious. The duty of the driver of such a vehicle, when he leaves it unattended in the street, is to be careful to have it so secured that it will not start up except by the intervention of some external cause not to be anticipated or guarded against.”
The accident in the instant case was not caused by the truck being put in motion by the intervention of any external cause (cf. Tierney v. New York Dugan Bros., 288 N. Y. 16) but simply by the unauthorized presence of children, including the infant plaintiff, in the defendant’s truck from which he fell. There are no facts alleged in the complaint from which the element of inherent danger can be predicated. As was noted by the late Mr. Justice Cabswell in Parkes v. New York Tel. Co. (120 Misc. 459, 461, affd. 207 App. Div. 869, supra): “ If this second element of danger be excluded from the doctrine of 1 attractive nuisance, ’ every object, although free from defect, upon the public highway becomes an attractive nuisance upon which liability may be founded.”
Plaintiffs’ contention that the defendants’ violation of the no parking ordinance is some evidence of negligence simply because the truck would not have been parked where it was had the ordinance been observed is without merit. The accident did not occur on a play street and thus no duty to the infant plaintiff as a member of the class for whose protection the safeguard had been designed was violated. Here the violation of the ordinance against all parking on the street in question did not have
Accordingly, the motion to dismiss the complaint is granted.
Submit order.