[1] Martin (P)[a] appealed the order of the Appellate Division that reversed a judgment entered after jury trial that found Herzog (D)[b] negligent and P blameless.

D requested a ruling that the absence of a light on the plaintiff's vehicle was "prima facie evidence of contributory negligence."

To omit, willfully or heedlessly, the safeguards prescribed by law for the benefit of another that he may be preserved in life or limb, is to fall short of the standard of diligence to which those who live in organized society are under a duty to conform.

A rule less rigid has been applied where the one who complains of the omission is not a member of the class for whose protection the safeguard is designed.

Courts have been reluctant to hold that the police regulations of boards and councils and other subordinate officials create rights of action beyond the specific penalties imposed.

The jurors were improperly instructed that they were at liberty in their discretion to treat the omission of lights either as innocent or as culpable.

The evidence on behalf of P tended to establish that the automobile operated by D was approaching at a high rate of speed, and that the car seemed to be on P's side of the road.

My conclusion is that we are substituting form and phrases for substance and diverging from the rule of causal connection.Martin v. Herzog demonstrates the following principles of tort law: 1.

In an opinion written by Benjamin N. Cardozo, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division's ruling that the trial judge's jury instruction was erroneous.

In failing to have headlights on his buggy, the plaintiff's intestate breached a duty of care to other highway travelers.

In Martin v. Herzog, the Court of Appeals found the plaintiff's traveling without lights an hour after sundown to be prima facie sufficient evidence of negligence contributing to the accident.

A dissenting opinion by John W. Hogan countered that the plaintiff's negligence was not a contributing cause of the accident because the defendant was driving on the wrong side of the road.

The dissenting opinion sets out the jury's findings of fact, which were affirmed by the Appellate Division: (A) the defendant was driving his car on the wrong side of the road; (B) the plaintiff's intestate was driving his buggy to the extreme right of the road; and (C) the highway was well lighted, such that witnesses could see the body of the plaintiff's intestate from forty feet away.