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Friend v. Morris D. Fishman, Inc.

302 N.Y. 389 Court N.Y. Decision date 1951-04-12 English

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p. 389
Seymour Friend, Respondent, v. Morris D. Fishman, Inc., Appellant.
Argued March 5, 1951;
decided April 12, 1951.
S. Sawyer Le Vay for appellant.
The jury obviously rendered a compromise verdict which the court should have set aside on appellant’s motion. (Angresani v. Tozzi, 217 App. Div. 642 , 245 N. Y. 558 ; Blackwell v. Glidden Co., 208 App. Div. 317 , 239 N. Y. 545 ; Clark v. Foreign Products Co., 194 App. Div. 284 ; Ferguson v. Chuck, 194 App. Div. 583 ; Hatch v. Attrill, 118 N. Y. 383 ; Breymann v. Morris & Cummings Dredging Co., 202 App. Div. 464 ; Delisky v. Leonard, 189 App. Div. 623 .)
Milton M. Mokotoff for respondent.
The jury’s verdict was not a compromise. (Hollwedel v. Duffy-Mott Co., 263 N. Y. 95 ; McClelland v. Climax Hosiery Mills, 252 N. Y. 347 ; Davis v. Dodge, 126 App. Div. 469 ; Koehler v. Adler, 78 N. Y. 287 ; Poel v. Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co., 159 App. Div. 365 .)

The court explicitly and without objection instructed the jurors that, if they found that plaintiff and defendant had entered into a contract for employment, they were under the necessity of returning a verdict for $3,360 — and that was a proper charge, since there was nothing to show that plaintiff was entitled to a penny less than that amount as damages. The ensuing verdict for the lesser sum of $2,400 was a compromise, rendered in disregard of both evidence and charge and may not stand. (See, e.g., Angresani v. Tozzi, 245 N. Y. 558 , affg. 217 App. Div. 642 ; Blackwell v. Glidden Co., 239 N. Y. 545 , affg. 208 App. Div. 317 ; Hatch v. Attrill, 118 N. Y. 383 , 389; Van Der Harst v. Koenig, 249 App. Div. 235 , 236.)

The judgments should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to abide the event.

Loughran, Ch. J., Lewis, Conway, Desmond, Dye, Fuld and Froessel, JJ., concur.

Judgments reversed, etc.

Cases cited