Case ID: f_123/html/0347-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "COXE, Circuit Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LEVY v. PROVIDENCE & STONINGTON S. S. CO.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    April 17, 1903.)
    1. New Trial—Inconsistent Verdict—Nominal Damages.
    A verdict awarding a passenger the nominal sum of $1 as damages for his expulsion from a boat cannot be sustained where to authorize any recovery the jury must have found that his removal was not justified, or that unnecessary force was used, and he was also subsequently imprisoned for half an hour.
    At Law. On motion by plaintiff to set aside the verdict and for a new trial.
    Jacob Marks, for the motion.
    Henry W. Taft, opposed.
   COXE, Circuit Judge.

I can see no way to sustain the verdict, which was for nominal damages only. The view most favorable to the defendant is that the jury found that the conduct of the plaintiff in violating the rules of the boat warranted his removal, but that the defendant’s employés used unnecessary force.

There can be no pretense that the nominal sum of $i is sufficient to compensate the plaintiff for the injury occasioned by this excessive use of force, and for the indignity of the subsequent imprisonment of at least half an hour.

The verdict is inconsistent and illogical. The motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial is granted.