Zito v. Ingersoll

• Decision Date: 14 October 1929
• Docket Number: No. 23.,23.
• Parties: ZITO et al. v. INGERSOLL et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

147 A. 400

ZITO et al.

v. INGERSOLL et al.

No. 23.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Oct. 14, 1929.

Action by Catharine Zito and husband against John W. Ingersoll and Harry L. Murphy, jointly and severally. Plaintiffs recovered verdicts against defendant last named, and he brings rule to show cause why the verdict should not be set aside. Rule discharged.

Argued January term, 1929, before GUMMERE, C. J., and PARKER, J.

Burton A. Gaskill, of Mays Landing, for plaintiffs.

Cole & Cole, of Atlantic City, for defendant Murphy.

Thompson & Hanstein, of Atlantic City, for defendant Ingersoll.

PER CURIAM. The case arises out of a collision of two automobiles, one owned and driven by defendant Murphy, and the other owned and driven by defendant Ingersoll. The two cars met. head-on and late at night, each driver accusing the other of having been on the wrong side of the road. Mrs. Zito, the female plaintiff, was a passenger in the Murphy car, and was quite seriously injured, and her husband claimed damages by reason thereof.

The first reason argued is that the verdicts were excessive. The verdict in favor of Mrs. Zito, which was against Murphy alone, Ingersoll being ignored by the jury, was for $5,000, and for her husband $1,060. The argument goes principally, if not entirely, in challenge of the $5,000 verdict. The evidence shows that Mrs. Zito was shot through the window of the Murphy car on the ground, the car fell over on her, and she could not be extricated until the car was absolutely lifted off of her by several men. She was in the hospital two weeks, in great pain, the diagnosis being concussion of the brain, contusion at the back of the head, brush burns of the legs, and a sacroiliac sprain. It is common knowledge that an injury to this part of the back is likely to be obscure, persistent, and often permanent. On the whole, we are not disposed to say that the verdict is so unreasonably excessive as that the court ought to set it aside or cut it down.

The next point is that the verdict was against the weight of evidence. The argument under this head consists substantially of the claim that Murphy was very drunk, so drunk, in fact that Mrs. Zito was necessarily aware of it, and that she was guilty of negligence by riding in his car. As Murphy had taken the Zito party from Hammonton to Ocean City in the evening, and it was late at night, and all parties necessarily had to go home, it is difficult to see what Mrs. Zito could have done under the...