Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1875 — Litigation Extraordinary. [ARTICLE]

Litigation Extraordinary.

John H. Gonzales) while getting off at Mount Vernon from an up passenger train on the New York & Harlem Railroad, on the 25th of November, 1864, was killed by a down express train. His widow sued the company and obtained a verdict for $5,000. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment on the ground that Gonzales was guilty of contributory negligence in getting off on the west side, where there was no platform. Then the case was tried over, and at the close of the plaintiff’s case a motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground of contributory negligence by Gonzales was granted. The Court of Appeals held the non-suit improper, and again granted a new trial. The railroad company was characterized as guilty of gross negligence in so arranging the time-table as to have an express train thundering by a station within one minute of the stoppage of an accommodation train, and the company was held bound to have a platform on both sides of the road. On the third trial Mrs. Gonzales again secured a verdict, which, on appeal, tne General Term set aside on the ground that the Judge who tried it should have granted the motion for a non suit. The case went for the third time to the Court of Appeals, and there the appeal was dismissed. The fourth trial, which was begun some days ago before Judge Freedman, was concluded yesterday, the Court directing a verdict in favor of the railroad company, on the ground that Gonzales, by the reasonable and ordinary use of his organs of hearing, could have been warned of the approach of the express train. The case will again go to the Court of Appeals. While the highest recovery possible under the laws of New York is only $5,000, the accrued costs amount to many times that sum. —ln the Hawaiian language every vowel is sounded. That would make it Kal-a-ka-u-a—five syllables. However, don’t let’s fight about it.