Case ID: minn_56/html/0011-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Buck, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Laura E. Thompson vs. Northwestern Guaranty Loan Co.
    Submitted on briefs Nov. 22, 1893.
    Affirmed Dec. 21, 1893.
    No. 8384.
    Review of order granting or refusing a new trial.
    Where the order of the court below in granting a new trial is fairly within its discretionary power, it will be sustained by this court. Hieles v. Stone, 13 Minn. 434, (Gil. 398.)
    Appeal by plaintiff, Laura E. Thompson, from an order of the District Court of Hennepin County, Frederick Hooker, J., made April 6, 1893, granting a new trial.
    On March 16,1892, plaintiff, a married woman forty five years old, was injured in the ground floor of the Guaranty Loan Building in Minneapolis. A glass plate seven inches square in this floor slipped out of its place when she stepped upon its edge and her left foot went through the hole and she fell and received serious injury. She brought this action against the owner, the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Company, to recover damages. She claimed that the glass tile had become loose and dangerous and that defendant neglected to examine and inspect the floor and repair the defect. She had a verdict for |10,380. Defendant moved for a new trial and the Court granted it, saying: There was no evidence that any of defendant’s officers knew of the defect in the floor, nor did the evidence warrant the jury in finding that the defect had existed for such a length of time that defendant in the exercise of ordinary care ought to have discovered it.
    
      F. F. Davis, for appellant.
    
      Keith, Evans, Thompson á Fairchild and Charles J. Bartleson, for respondent.
   Buck, J.

The action of the court below in granting a new trial was fairly within its discretion, and, following the rule laid down in Hicks v. Stone, 13 Minn. 434, (Gil. 398,) the order granting a new trial is affirmed.

(Opinion published 57 N. W. Rep. 223.)