Sebeck v. Plattdeutsche Volkfest Verein
| Decision Date | 21 June 1900 |
| Citation | 64 N.J.L. 624,46 A. 631 |
| Parties | SEBECK v. PLATTDEUTSCHE VOLKFEST VEREIN. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to circuit court, Hudson county.
Action by John Sebeck against the Plattdeutsehe Volkfest Verein. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
John 1. Woller, for plaintiff in error. Charles L. Carrick and Rudolph F. Rabe, for defendant in error.
GUMMERE, J.On August 21, 1888, the defendant held a festival at its Scheutzen Park, in Hudson county, to which the attendance of the public was invited; an admission fee of 25 cents being charged to each person who attended. Among other attractions, an exhibition of fireworks was given in the evening by one Gerhardt, a manufacturer of fireworks, under a contract with the defendant, by which the providing of the fireworks and the conducting of the exhibition was left entirely in his hands. The plaintiff, who was present as a spectator, having paid the required admission fee, was watching this exhibition, and while he was doing so a bomb exploded in a sheet-iron mortar in which it had been placed for the purpose of throwing it into the air. The explosion caused the mortar to burst, and one of the flying fragments struck the plaintiff in the neck, injuring him quite severely, and another struck him on the hand. At the time of the accident the plaintiff was standing in the middle of a crowd, and about 100 feet away from the place where the bomb exploded. No rope or other barrier was stretched around that part of the grounds where the fireworks were being exploded, for the purpose of keeping the crowd back a safe distance; but the members of the defendant's amusement committee, in co-operation with the police, who were upon the grounds, were stationed about or around the place for the purpose of keeping the crowd back. The plaintiff, having sued to recover for the injuries received by him, was nonsuited by the trial court, and now seeks to have that judgment set aside. The grounds upon which the nonsuit was directed were that the defendant was not liable because the exhibition of fireworks was not given by it, but by an independent contractor, and, further, because, even if the defendant was chargeable with the duty of seeing that due care for the safety of spectators was used while the display was in progress, there was nothing in the evidence which would support the conclusion that it had not fully performed that duty.
We cannot yield to the view that the defendant was entirely relieved...
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Brown v. Racquet Club of Bricktown
...186 A.2d 274 (1962). But see Reisman v. Public Service Corp., 82 N.J.L. 464, 181 A. 838 (E. & A.1911); Sebeck v. Plattdeutsche Volkfest Verein, 64 N.J.L. 624, 46 A. 631 (E. & A.1900) (amusement park operators who arrange for independent contractors to give a fireworks display are not liable......
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