Martin v. Herzog

Facts

On the night of August 21, 1915, William Martin was driving a buggy toward Tarrytown with his wife, Elizabeth Martin, beside him. Herzog's car, coming the other way, struck the buggy where the highway makes a curve. Both were thrown to the ground, and Martin was killed. Herzog said the buggy emerged suddenly from the gloom as he rounded the curve. His lamps pointed right as his car turned left along the curve, so he was peering into shadow. Herzog was charged with negligence for not keeping to the right of the center of the highway, as the Highway Law required. There was no evidence that he was speeding or that his car's equipment was defective. Martin was charged with negligence for traveling without lights, which the Highway Law also required; the court called the violation admitted. The case was tried and argued on the assumption that the hour for lights had arrived. The trial judge told the jury it could consider the missing lights as some evidence of contributory negligence (the injured person's own fault helping cause the harm), but not as conclusive evidence. He refused Herzog's request to charge that the missing light was "prima facie evidence of contributory negligence." At the plaintiff's request, he charged that driving without a light "is not negligence in itself." The jury found Herzog at fault and Martin blameless.

Issues

1. When a traveler omits, without excuse, the lights a statute requires for the protection of other travelers, is the omission negligence in itself, or only some evidence of negligence that the jury may weigh as it chooses?
2. Where an unseen, unlit buggy was struck more than an hour after sundown, must the jury be told what effect the missing lights may have on contributory negligence?

Holding

Martin's admitted, unexcused failure to carry lights was negligence in itself, so the charge letting jurors treat it as innocent or culpable at their discretion was error. Because a collision more than an hour after sundown with an unseen, unlit buggy supports an inference of causal connection, the jury should also have been told the omission was prima facie evidence of contributory negligence, meaning enough by itself to find Martin at fault unless its force was overcome.