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161 A.D. 397

Ewing v. Farley

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · decided 1914-03-13

Appeal by the. defendant, James H. Farley, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiff, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Rensselaer on the 21st day of October, 1913, upon the verdict of a jury for $1,000 (reduced by stipulation to $600), and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the 17th day of November, 1913, denying defendant’s motion for a new trial made upon the minutes.

Decided 1914-03-13

Smith, P. J. (dissenting):

¶1Plaintiff is a child three years old non sui juris. He was in the shoe store of the defendant with his mother. While the attention of his mother was diverted in looking at some shoes he strayed away from his mother and fell down a stairway leading out of the room, and which was protected only by a curtain. This stairway was not used by the customers of the store and was at the end of a passageway, which passageway was apparently used only by the clerks, who had full knowledge of the situation. The construction was not in any way negligent in failing to guard against the acts of any one sui juris. The defendant has been charged with damages -for negligence in failing to guard against the wanderings of a *400three-year-old child, whom the mother allowed to stray away from her while she was looking at shoes. In my judgment this imposed a duty upon a storekeeper far beyond the requirement of the law, and I recommend that the judgment and order he reversed and complaint dismissed, with costs.

¶2Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.

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