Snyder v. Bicking

• Decision Date: 09 October 1935
• Docket Number: No. 22.,22.
• Citation: 181 A. 161
• Parties: SNYDER et al. v. BICKING et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

181 A. 161

SNYDER et al.

v. BICKING et al.

No. 22.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Oct. 9, 1935.

Syllabus by the Court.

Charge to the jury on contributory negligence considered and held to exhibit no injurious error.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Ethel Snyder and another against William E. Bicking and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal.

Affirmed.

James Mercer Davis, of Camden, for appellants,

Martin J. Greenblatt, of Vineland, for respondents.

PARKER, Justice.

The case arises out of a collision between two automobiles. The plaintiff Samuel P. Snyder was driving a car belonging to his daughter Ethel, the other plaintiff. He claimed for personal injuries, and she claimed for damage to her car. The jury found for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal.

The only exception on which the two grounds of appeal are based was taken at the end of the charge, and reads as follows :

"Mr. Davis: If your Honor please, I should like to have an exception to your application or statement of the rule of contributory negligence, pointing out to the court that your Honor did not define to the jury that it must also be the proximate cause."

It will be observed that this exception does not specifically criticize anything that the trial judge said, but intimates error in his omission to say something that should have been said. Ordinarily, there should be a request to charge what counsel conceives to be the law applicable; and the request should be in writing.

The Supreme Court has held that in exceptional cases, where the court has unexpectedly omitted to charge on a common point, the request may be oral, Lambert v. Trenton, etc., Corporation, 103 N. J. Law, 23, 135 A. 270; although in that case this court did not concur, Id., 104 N. J. Law, 175, 139 A. 718. But passing this point, we fail to discern harmful error in the charge. What the judge said on the subject of negligence and contributory negligence after alluding to the circumstances of the accident, was as follows:

"You shall consider all the evidence pertaining to the manner in which these cars were operated, the place where the accident occurred, photographs that have been offered in evidence. Consider all of that, so that you may be able to determine whether this defendant was negligent in the operation of her motor vehicle, and if so, whether that was the proximate cause of the accident. If you should find that she was negligent, then you should consider whether or not, from all the testimony, all the evidence, the plaintiff himself was guilty of contributory negligence such as contributed in any way to this accident. If he did in any degree contribute to this accident through his negligence, that is, through his failure to operate his car as an ordinarily prudent person would under the same circumstances, or that he did something that an ordinarily prudent person would not do under the same circumstances, which in any way contributed to the accident, then he cannot recover. If you should find that the defendant was negligent and that the plaintiff in the operation of his car was free from contributory negligence—that is, the plaintiff, Samuel Snyder—then you should find a verdict in his favor. Otherwise, you should find a verdict of no cause of action."

The appeal is submitted on briefs, so that we must look to the brief of appellants for the criticism of this charge. The underlying thought appears to be that in charging on contributory negligence, the court must be careful to warn the jury substantially in the language used by the Supreme Court in New Jersey Express Co. v. Nichols, 33 N. J. Law,"434, 439, 97 Am. Dec. 722, viz.: "To conclude him from maintaining his action, his conduct...