Case ID: misc_126/html/0375-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Tessie Guinta, Respondent, v. Yoost Photo Play Theatre Company, Appellant.
    Supreme Court, Appellate Term, First Department,
    January 21, 1926.
    Trial —• power of trial judge to grant or deny motion to set aside verdict of jury exhausted when once exercised — error to entertain motion for reargument of application to set aside verdict.
    It was error for the trial court to entertain a motion for the reargument of its denial of a motion to set aside the verdict in the action herein, since, while it has power to grant or deny such a motion in the first instance, such power is exhausted when that authority is once exercised.
    Appeal by defendant from two orders of the Municipal Court, Borough of Manhattan, Fourth District, entered in favor of the plaintiff.
    
      Alfred W. Andrews [James Gibson Ewell of counsel], for the appellant.
    
      Abram S. Jaffer, for the respondent.
   Per Curiam.

The trial judge has the power to grant or deny a motion upon legal grounds to set aside a jury’s verdict. But when that authority is once exercised his statutory powers are exhausted. (Colwell v. N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. Co., 57 Misc. 623; Duran v. Chelsea Exchange Bank, 123 id. 158; Conolly v. Jolly, 86 id. 42.) It was, therefore, error for the court to entertain the motion for a reargument of its denial of the motion to set aside the verdict which error requires a reversal of the order. The order appealed from is reversed, with thirty dollars costs, and verdict reinstated.

All concur; present, Guy, Wagner and Lydon, JJ.