Doughty v. Atl. City Bus. League

• Decision Date: 03 July 1911
• Citation: 80 A. 473
• Parties: DOUGHTY v. ATLANTIC CITY BUSINESS LEAGUE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

80 A. 473

DOUGHTY

v. ATLANTIC CITY BUSINESS LEAGUE.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

July 3, 1911.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Atlantic County.

Action by Carroll Doughty against the Atlantic City Business League. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Eli H. Chandler, for plaintiff in error.

Harry R. Coulomb, for defendant in error.

PER CURIAM. There was evidence justifying an inference that the defendant, through a committee, arranged for a display of fireworks on a vacant lot in a crowded portion of Atlantic City, and that the plaintiff's property was destroyed by fire communicated from the fireworks. The trial judge left it for the jury to say whether the explosion of fireworks was a nuisance under the circumstances of the case, and whether it was the cause of the fire that destroyed the plaintiff's property. This was as favorable a view of the case as the plaintiff in error could claim. Jenne v. Sutton, 43 N. J. Law, 257, 39 Am. Rep. 578. Although in that case the bomb was exploded in the street, and in this case upon private property near the street line, the difference is not material. McAndrews v. Collerd, 42 N. J. Law, 189, 36 Am. Rep. 508. There is nothing in Sebeck v. Plattdeutsch Volkfest Verein, 64 N. J. Law, 624, 46 Atl. 631, 50 L. R. A. 199, 81 Am. St. Rep. 512, to conflict with this view. The fact that exculpated the defendant in that case was that the plaintiff voluntarily assumed the risk for the sake of the pleasure of seeing the fireworks, and to protect him from the danger would have been to exclude him from the sight he had paid to see.

Since in the present case the exhibition was a nuisance, the doctrine that exempts one from liability for the act of an independent contractor does not apply. Cuff v. Newark & New York Railroad Co., 35 N. J. Law, 17, 10 Am. Rep. 205, affirmed 35 N. J. Law, 574.

The judgment for the plaintiff is affirmed, with costs.