## Facts

- Sixteen-year-old Harvey Hynes swam in the Harlem River, a navigable public waterway, to the Bronx side where a railroad right-of-way ran along the bulkhead.
- The railroad operated trains using high-tension electric wires supported on poles and crossarms along the river.
- Local boys used a plank/springboard projecting from the bulkhead as a diving board; it extended partly over the public waterway beyond the pier line.
- The springboard had been used openly for more than five years without objection or obstruction by the railroad.
- Hynes climbed onto the bulkhead, walked to the end of the springboard, and stood poised to dive into the river.
- A crossarm with electric wires fell from the railroad’s pole, the wires struck Hynes, broke the board, and he fell into the water and died.
- Hynes’s mother, as administratrix, sued the railroad for wrongful death based on negligent maintenance of the high-tension wires adjacent to the public river.

## Issues

1. Whether a railroad bordering a navigable river must use reasonable care to prevent high-tension wires from injuring bathers in the adjacent public waters.
2. Whether a bather using a springboard attached to or projecting from the railroad’s bulkhead becomes a trespasser such that the railroad’s duty is limited to avoiding willful or wanton harm.
3. Whether momentary use of an encroaching object over the river removes a swimmer from the protections afforded to users of a public highway.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of New York reversed the dismissal and ordered a new trial.
- The court held the railroad owed a duty of reasonable care to bathers in the public river to prevent injury from falling high-tension wires.
- The duty extended to Hynes while he used the springboard projecting over the water; his conduct was not treated as an abandonment of the public waterway.
- The court rejected a rule turning liability on technical property-line or fixture distinctions that would create a momentary interval with no duty.

## Legal Principles

- Owners controlling dangerous instrumentalities near a public highway must regulate their conduct with reasonable care in contemplation of lawful users of that highway.
- A railroad whose right-of-way borders a navigable river must use reasonable care to prevent bathers in the river from being electrocuted by wires falling from the railroad’s property.
- Bathers do not lose the protection owed to users of a public waterway merely by diving from an object encroaching over the water as part of swimming activities common to the setting; such conduct is not treated as an entry upon the land for duty purposes.

## Conclusion

The court held that a railroad operating high-voltage equipment alongside a navigable river must take reasonable precautions for the safety of swimmers using the public waters, and that this duty is not avoided by characterizing a diver on an encroaching springboard as a trespasser.


Hynes v. N.Y. Cent. R.R. Co., 231 N.Y. 229 (1921)