## Facts

- Handel rode on the defendant’s elevated railroad and fell from a train car, became caught in a door, was dragged, and ultimately fell to the street, suffering fatal injuries.
- Handel’s estate sued the transit operator for negligence, alleging the conductor negligently closed the car door on Handel, causing the fall and dragging.
- The only direct proof offered on causation and fault was a bystander’s testimony that, minutes after the accident while Handel lay injured, he said: “Save me. Help me. Why did that conductor close the door on me?”
- The trial court excluded the statement as hearsay and, with no other competent evidence of negligence, granted a nonsuit and dismissed the complaint.
- The Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal; the New York Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether Handel’s statement made minutes after the accident was admissible under the res gestae doctrine (commonly treated as a spontaneous or excited utterance exception to hearsay).
2. Whether, without that statement, the estate presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of negligence.

## Decision

- The appellate court upheld exclusion of the statement as inadmissible hearsay because it was treated as a retrospective narrative rather than part of the occurrence.
- With the statement excluded, the court held the estate failed to present competent evidence linking any negligent act or omission by the defendant to the accident.
- The nonsuit and dismissal were affirmed; the Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion.

## Legal Principles

- An out-of-court statement describing the cause of an earlier event is inadmissible hearsay unless it qualifies as a sufficiently contemporaneous, spontaneous declaration associated with the occurrence.
- Where the plaintiff’s only proof of negligence depends on an inadmissible hearsay statement, and no other competent evidence establishes fault, dismissal for failure to make a prima facie case is proper.
- A dissenting view would admit a near-immediate statement made under severe stress as a spontaneous utterance, but the majority applied a stricter approach to post-event declarations.

## Conclusion

The courts affirmed dismissal because the decedent’s minutes-after statement blaming the conductor was excluded as hearsay under a strict res gestae approach, leaving no competent evidence to prove the defendant’s negligence or causation.


Handel v. N.Y. Rapid Transit Corp., 277 N.Y. 548, 13 N.E.2d 468 (1938)