Yes. The truck owner can be held responsible. The court said that even if the car's driver was also careless, the crash never would have happened if the truck wasn't left like a dark trap in the middle of the road. The rule is that when two separate mistakes cause one single accident, both people who made the mistakes can be held responsible for the whole thing. So, the truck owner can't just get off the hook by blaming the other driver.

Yes, the truck owner should have to pay too. I think that even if the car driver messed up, the crash wouldn't have happened if the truck wasn't parked in such a dangerous way. When more than one person's mistakes add up to cause an accident, each person is on the hook for the whole thing. Other cases have said the same thing. So the case against the truck owner needs to be reopened and tried again.

Yes, the truck owner should have to pay too. Even if the car driver messed up, the crash wouldn't have happened if the truck wasn't parked in such a dangerous way. When more than one person's mistakes add up to cause an accident, each person is on the hook for the whole thing. Other cases have said the same thing. So the case against the truck owner needs to be reopened and tried again.

<opinion type="majority"> In a negligence action to recover damages for personal injury, plaintiff appeals from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County, entered June 21,1965, which dismissed the complaint as against defendant Bragoli upon the court’s decision at the close of plaintiff’s case upon a jury trial. Judgment reversed, on the law, and new trial granted, with costs to appellant to abide the event. No questions of fact have been considered. At the close of plaintiff’s case the court dismissed the complaint against the owner of a tractor truck who on a stormy night left it parked without lights in the middle of a road where the car in which plaintiff was a passenger collided with it from the rear. From the testimony of the driver of the car the court concluded that she was guilty of negligence and was solely responsible for the collision. That testimony was that she saw the truck when it was four car lengths ahead of her and that she saw it in enough time to turn. At other points, however, she indicated that she did not know just what happened, that she swerved to avoid the truck, “ and the next thing I knew I woke up. I was unconscious ”. Assuming, atguendo, that she was negligent, the accident could not have happened had not the truck owner allowed Ms unlighted vehicle to stand in the middle of the highway. Where separate acts of negligence combine to produce directly a single injury each tort-feasor is responsible for the <page-number citation-index="1" label="555">*555</page-number>entire result, even though his act alone might not have caused it (Hancock v. Steber, 208 App. Div. 455; Matthews v. State of New York, 271 App. Div. 389, affd. 296 N. Y. 946). Accordingly, the complaint against the truck owner must be reinstated and a new trial had. Christ, Acting P. J., Brennan, Hill, Rabin and Hopkins, JJ., concur. </opinion>

Yes. A defendant whose negligence is a direct cause of an injury is liable for the entire result, even if another party's negligence also contributed to the harm. The court reasoned that even assuming the driver of the plaintiff's car was negligent, the accident could not have occurred without Bragoli's preceding negligent act of leaving an unlighted truck parked in the middle of the highway. Citing Hancock v. Steber, the court applied the principle of concurrent negligence, which holds that when separate negligent acts combine to produce a single injury, each wrongdoer is responsible for the entire outcome. Therefore, Bragoli's potential liability cannot be dismissed merely because another party may have also been at fault; the question should be decided by a jury.

Yes, the truck owner can be held responsible. We conclude that even if the driver was negligent, the accident would not have occurred if the truck owner had not allowed his unlighted vehicle to stand in the middle of the highway. This is because where separate acts of negligence combine to produce directly a single injury, each tortfeasor is responsible for the entire result, as established by precedent in cases such as Hancock v. Steber and Matthews v. State of New York. Therefore, the complaint against the truck owner must be reinstated and a new trial granted.

Hill v. Edmonds

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