Case ID: ill-app_77/html/0119-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Sears", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lena Sagor and Moses Sagor v. Susan Gibson.
    1. Verdicts—Unsupported by the Evidence. —A verdict against two defendants, which is entirely unsupported by evidence so far as.one of the defendants is concerned, will be set aside.
    Trespass on the Case, for personal injuries. Trial in the Superior Court of Cook Count)7; the Hon. Philip Stein, Judge, presiding. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff; error by defendant.
    Heard in this court at the March term, 1898.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed July 21, 1898.
    Rosenthal, Kurz & Hirschl, attorneys for plaintiffs in error.
    Blaisdell & McCaskill, attorneys for defendant in error.
   Mr. Justice Sears

delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was brought by defendant in error to recover for injuries sustained, as is alleged, through negligence of plaintiffs in error, and the trial resulted in verdict and judgment for $5,500 against both plaintiffs in error.

The negligence charged in each count of the declaration is the negligent building and construction of a door, which, by reason of its defective construction, fell upon defendant in error and injured her. There is no evidence proving or tending to prove that plaintiff in error Lena Sagor had anything whatever to do with the construction or building of the door in question. On the contrary, it is uncontroverted that Hoses Sagor was the owner of the building and the one who let the several contracts for its construction. The verdict, therefore, was entirely unsupported by evidence, so far as Lena Sagor is concerned, and her motion for a new trial should have been granted.

It is doubtful if a verdict for any such amount could, upon the evidence here, be sustained as against the owner of the building, for lack of a sufficiently established connection between the most serious of the injuries complained of and the alleged cause thereof, viz., the falling of the door. But the reason first noted makes another trial necessary.

The judgment is reversed and cause remanded.