Resto v. Metropolitan Distributors, Inc.
| Decision Date | 15 December 1954 |
| Citation | 150 N.Y.S.2d 672,1 Misc.2d 889 |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
| Parties | Carmen RESTO, Plaintiff, v. METROPOLITAN DISTRIBUTORS, Inc., and Joseph Thomas, Jr., Defendants. |
Shafter & Shafter and Bella V. Dodd, New York City, for plaintiff.
Louis T. Cymrot, New York City, for defendants.
The jury rendered a verdict for $25,000 in favor of the plaintiff in this personal injury suit. After the verdict plaintiff requested ten days in which to consider a motion to set the verdict aside as inadequate. Defendant moved to set the verdict aside as against the weight of evidence. Plaintiff has now decided not to make her motion.
Despite the substantial amount of the verdict, when contrasted with verdicts in like suits, it is obviously a compromise. Plaintiff is a young woman having just reached her majority. She was very seriously hurt when hit by defendant's truck. The story she tells of the occurrence is manifestly inaccurate. She claims that she waited at the curb on the corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street for the light to turn green for cross town traffic. When it did, she started across the street. Nothing hindered her progress and she was a young and active person. Nevertheless, she says, that she only reached the middle of the avenue when the light changed to red against her. This could not have happened. It appears that this is her version because all of the evidence shows that the light was green for traffic on the avenue when she was struck and she is at a loss to account for her presence in the roadway otherwise. The sole eye witness to the accident, other than those involved, gave varying versions of what took place but he was consistent that he left the sidewalk with the light against him but stopped a few feet from the curb when he saw defendant's truck coming up the avenue. At this point plaintiff passed him and continued on despite his shouted warning of the approaching vehicle. When interviewed by the detectives of the Homicide Squad within an hour after the accident he gave as the reason for its happening that plaintiff was crossing against the lights.
The trial judge who is aware of the sacrosanct character accorded to jury verdicts by appellate courts becomes ever more loathe to set aside such a determination. Perhaps if it were realized how completely confusing are the instructions that must be given in a case where the plaintiff ignores the lights or crosses the...
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Honigsberg v. New York City Transit Authority
...despite its substantial size ($25,000), was, when contrasted with verdicts in like suits, inadequate. Resto v. Metropolitan Distributors, Inc., 1 Misc.2d 889, 150 N.Y.S.2d 672; where the very amount of the verdict, in the light of the injuries and special damages if plaintiff's evidence wer......
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Dean v. Hotel Greenwich Corp.
...a much larger verdict. For this reason alone the verdict should be set aside and a new trial ordered (Resto v. Metropolitan Distributors, 1 Misc.2d 889, 150 N.Y.S.2d 672; Sampson v. Graves, 199 App.Div. 762, 192 N.Y.S. 114; Ferguson v. Chuck, 194 App.Div. 583, 185 N.Y.S. 800; Yedinak v. Cit......
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Freeman v. Manhattan Cab Corp.
...286 App.Div. 716, 146 N.Y.S.2d 369, and the jury so cautioned. Although that kind of subtlety as a distinction, cf. Resto v. Met. Dist., Inc., Sup., 150 N.Y.S.2d 672, Steuer, J., may be lost to a jury, still it would be an affected defendant's It is generally held that counsel in summation ......
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Boudreau v. Damas Food Market Corp.
...claimed by the plaintiff of such a serious and permanent nature as to compromise defendant's negligence? Vide, Resto v. Metropolitan Distrs., 1 Misc.2d 889, 150 N.Y.S.2d 672. The injury in this case was neither that serious, nor that permanent; it was neither complex, nor comprehensive nor ......