King v. Steglitz

• Decision Date: 28 April 1933
• Docket Number: No. 150.,150.
• Citation: 166 A. 146
• Parties: KING et al. v. STEGLITZ et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

166 A. 146

KING et al.

v. STEGLITZ et al.

No. 150.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

April 28, 1933.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Mary A. King and husband against Samuel Steglitz and another. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

David E. Feldman, of Newark, for appellants.

Edward A. Markley, of Jersey City, for respondents.

CAMPBELL, Chancellor.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Hudson circuit, and it appears to us to be without substantial legal merit.

The plaintiff Mary A. King was a passenger in a taxicab known as the Twentieth Century cab, owned and controlled by the defendant-appellant, Samuel Steglitz, and operated by the defendant John Morrison.

This cab was proceeding northerly on Roseville avenue, Newark, and as it was crossing the intersection of that avenue with Seventh avenue a collision took place between it and another taxicab known as a Yellow cab, which was proceeding easterly along Seventh avenue.

The impact caused the cab in which Mrs. King was the passenger to overturn, and she was injured. This occurrence took place May 27, 1981.

Mrs. King and her husband received from the Yellow Cab, Inc., $3,500, and on January 28, 1932, executed to that company a covenant not to sue and subsequently brought an action against these appellants resulting in a verdict in favor of Mrs. King for $4,000 and her husband for $3,500, which latter was reduced to $2,500. From the judgments entered for these amounts, the defendants below appeal.

The first ground urged is that there was error in refusing to nonsuit and direct a verdict in favor of the appellants because no negligence was established against them, and that the sole cause of the happening was the negligence of the driver of the Yellow cab.

Upon the merits, these actions of the trial court were not erroneous because the proofs were unquestionably such as to require the submission of this question to the jury.

And here it must be said that in considering the proofs it is necessary to keep in mind that the relationship of passenger and carrier for hire existing between Mrs. King and the owner of the cab in which she was riding called for the exercise of a high degree of care by the latter toward her, while the fact that both cabs were users of public highways called for the exercise of reasonable care only as between themselves as such users.

It is with much reluctance that we have referred to this question because these grounds of appeal are not properly before us. After verdict the defendants-appellants had a rule to show cause why the verdicts should not be set aside. The record before us does not show the reasons assigned and argued under this rule, but a rule of the trial judge under date of July 1, 1932, conclusively shows that the reasons urged were "that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence on liability of the defendants, that the verdict was excessive and that the verdict was contrary to the charge of the trial judge and contrary to the law."

Such rule also contains the following: "And the court having concluded that said verdict was not against the weight of the evidence and was not contrary to the charge and not contrary...