Tedla v. Ellman

Facts

Anna Tedla and her brother, John Bachek, collected and sold junk. They often picked it up at the incinerator of the village of Islip. Bachek was a deaf-mute. At about six o'clock on a Sunday evening in December, after dark, the two were walking along Sunrise Highway, wheeling baby carriages that held junk and wood from the incinerator. There was testimony that Bachek carried a lighted lantern. At that spot the highway had two roadways separated by a grass plot. There were no footpaths, and the center grass plot was soft. A statute required pedestrians walking on a roadway to keep to the left of the center line. Tedla and Bachek instead walked east on the east-bound, right-hand roadway. A State policeman testified that very few cars were going east, while westbound traffic was very heavy. A passing car, driven by one of the defendants and going the same direction on the same roadway, struck them. Tedla was injured and Bachek was killed. The jury found that the accident was due solely to the driver's negligence.

Issues

1. Is a pedestrian who walks on the right-hand roadway, in violation of a statute requiring pedestrians to keep to the left of the center line, guilty of contributory negligence as matter of law that bars any recovery?
2. Was the pedestrians' presence on the roadway where they were struck a proximate cause of the accident as matter of law, or a question of fact for the jury?

Holding

Tedla and Bachek were not guilty of contributory negligence as matter of law. The keep-left statute was not meant to be obeyed when obedience would expose pedestrians to greater danger, and the jury could find that they had good reason to use the east-bound roadway. Negligence and proximate cause were questions of fact.