Case ID: ny-st-rep_15/html/0350-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Margaret D. Griswold, Resp’t, v. The Metropolitan Elevated Railroad Company and Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company, Appl’ts.
    
      (New York Court of Common Pleas, General Term,
    
    
      Filed April 2, 1888.)
    
    Evidence—Competency of.
    Where the object of proof was to show damages to real property by reason of a structure erected in proximity to it, and it was impossible to' ascertain the rents received for the property prior to the erection of the structure: Held, that evidence of the rental value of the premises would be received as the best of which the case was susceptible.
    
      Inglis Stuart, for resp’t; Davies & Bapallo, for app’lts.
   Per Curiam.

No brief has been filed on behalf of the appellant, for the reason probably that substantial justice was- done by the verdict.

There seems to be no doubt that the plaintiff is entitled to all the damages that are recoverable in this action, and that she is the proper party plaintiff.

There may be a question as to the competency of some of the questions that were put by the plaintiff’s counsel, but the result does not appear to have been influenced by the answers.

The actual amount received by the plaintiff for the rent of the building from the time she became the owner might have been shown by the plaintiff, if Mr. Pangburn, a witness for the defendants, had not given, and professed to be able to give, the rent at the time of the trial, and for several years previously. The jury had before them evidence as to what the plaintiff herself had received.

It appeared that the persons from whom the plaintiff derived her title to the house and to a part of the damages, are dead, and that the agent by whom their rents were collected, is likewise dead; it further appeared that the tenants of the house from the time the Elevated railroad began its operations were poor people, of a low class, and it may be assumed that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to trace or find them. Under these circumstances, evidence of the rental value may be taken to be evidence of what was actually received as rent.

Evidence of rental value seems to be, under the peculiar circumstances, the best evidence of which the case is susceptible.

The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.

Daly, J., concurs.