Blessing v. Goodman.
| Citation | 133 N.J.L. 608,45 A.2d 588 |
| Decision Date | 24 January 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 32.,32. |
| Parties | BLESSING v. GOODMAN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey) |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court.
Personal injury action by Isabelle Blessing against David Goodman, doing business as the Ridgewood Corset Shop. A judgment for plaintiff was reversed and a venire de novo awarded and plaintiff appeals.
Judgment of the Supreme Court, reversing the judgment of the trial court and awarding a venire de novo, affirmed.
Doughty & Dwyer, of Ridgewood (Michael A. Dwyer, of Ridgewood, and John W. Ockford, of Union City, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.
Wilbur A. Stevens, of Newark (Joseph Coult, of Newark, of counsel), for defendant-appellee.
The plaintiff-appellant appeals from a judgment entered in the Supreme Court reversing a judgment of the Bergen Common Pleas in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant. In the trial court, the jury awarded the plaintiff a judgment in the sum of $1,500, upon the alleged negligence of the defendant. The complaint alleges that the plaintiff entered the store of the defendant to make a purchase of merchandise and ‘that the negligence of the defendant consisted in that he did maintain the floor of the premises in an unsafe condition’ whereby the plaintiff fell and sustained the injuries complained of.
The defendant on appeal to the Supreme Court stated in his grounds of appeal that ‘the trial court erred in charging the jury with reference to the testimony of the plaintiff as follows: ‘that she’ (the plaintiff) ‘came in to buy something and that she slipped and fell upon a floor which she says was unusually slippery,’ though objection was made thereto by the defendant'. There was a reversal of the judgment and a venire de novo awarded and we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court for the reasons to be presently stated.
The plaintiff's complaint does not allege that the floor of the defendant's premises was ‘unusually slippery’ nor did the plaintiff or the witnesses on behalf of the plaintiff testify that the floor on which the plaintiff fell was ‘unusually slippery’.
The trial judge, in reviewing the testimony of the plaintiff, charged the jury that, ‘Isabelle Blessing says that * * * she slipped and fell upon a floor which she says was unusually slippery * * *’. At the conclusion of the trial judge's charge, the attorney for the defendant stated to the court his objection to the use of the word ‘unusually’ in describing the condition of the floor in the defendant's premises where the plaintiff allegedly fell. The objection was timely and proper. The trial judge, after objection was made to his use of the word ‘unusually’, did not correct his error to the jury, although there was ample opportunity to make the correction.
We feel constrained to hold that the foregoing misquotation of the testimony by the trial judge and the failure to correct it after...
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Overby v. Union Laundry Co., A--600
...however, to the distinction between a floor that is perhaps 'very slippery' and one that is 'unusually slippery.' Blessing v. Goodman, 133 N.J.L. 608, 45 A.2d 588 (E. & A.1946). And so it is resolved that proof of the mere circumstance that a person falls upon a floor that admittedly has be......
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Bohn v. Hudson & M. R. Co.
...of floors and stairways is noticeable in Abt v. Leeds & Lippincott Co., 109 N.J.L. 311, 162 A. 525 (E. & A.1932); Blessing v. Goodman, 133 N.J.L. 608, 45 A.2d 588 (E. & A.1946); Blessing v. Goodman 137 N.J.L. 395, 60 A.2d 69 (Sup.Ct.1948); Overby v. Union Laundry Co., 28 N.J.Super. 100, 100......
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Blessing v. Goodman.
...for the plaintiff because of misquotation of testimony made by the trial court in its charge to the jury. Blessing v. Goodman, Err. & App. 1945, 133 N.J.L. 608, 45 A.2d 588. Having considered all of the grounds of appeal urged by appellant, we consider that the sole point worthy of discussi......