Clark v. Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 April 1930
• Docket Number: Nos. 444, 445.,s. 444, 445.
• Citation: 149 A. 828
• Parties: CLARK v. STANDARD SANITARY MFG. CO. (two cases).
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

149 A. 828

CLARK

v. STANDARD SANITARY MFG. CO. (two cases).

Nos. 444, 445.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

April 17, 1930.

Appeal from District Court.

Actions by Helen Clark and by Harold Clark against the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, a corporation. From judgment for plaintiff in each case, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued January term, 1930, before PARKER, BLACK, and BODINE, JJ.

Henry Schlittenhart, of Newark, for appellant.

Breslin & Breslin, of Lyndhurst, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

The plaintiff, a tenant in an apartment house, was injured by turning off a faucet in the bathroom of her apartment. Her testimony was that she felt a sudden sensation of pain, and found that her hand was bleeding profusely and that an artery had been cut, and an examination developed the fact that the porcelain handle of the faucet had broken in her hand and a jagged piece of porcelain had cut it. The defendant was the manufacturer of the particular faucet She sued the defendant for damages, her husband joining in for loss of his wife's services. Each plaintiff had a judgment, and on these appeals the points are made: "First, that the court erred in refusing a nonsuit on the grounds that no duty by the defendant to the plaintiffs was shown; also, that there was no evidence of negligence on the part of the defendant; and that the court should have directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that the evidence showed conclusively that the defendant had used due care in making tests; also, that there was no proof that the defect in the handle was a proximate cause of the injury; that there was no proof that the handle was defective when it left the hands of the defendant; that the court erred in permitting the witness Holden to testify as an expert; and that it refused to charge certain requests.

We consider that a question for the jury was presented on all the material aspects of the case. It was conceded that the defendant had made the faucet in question and there was evidence to show that these porcelain handles were liable to break if not properly manufactured. A handle of this sort is something which is more or less in constant use, and it is necessarily subject to a certain amount of shock in turning on and off, so that it is quite reasonable to say that a manufacturer should use due care to manufacture it with the quality of resisting this ordinary usage. Apparently it broke when the faucet was being turned off in the usual and ordinary...