Case ID: misc_16/html/0374-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bischoff, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John A. Clinchy et al., Respondents, v. Henry J. Apgar, Appellant.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    March, 1896.)
    1. Pleading — District Courts—Beply.
    No reply-is required to a counterclaim in an action in a District Gam*.
    ' Evidence — Contract with third person.
    • On an issue as to. whether. defendant was employed by plaintiff to ; do certain repairs to a boiler, where there is evidence tending to show that the repairs wfere made necessary because of the defective setting .
    , of such boiler by defendant under a contract with a third person;' such contract is relevant and admissible to show the .terms under which such work was done.'
    3. Trial — Objections to admission, of evidence.
    " An objection to the admission of evidence should state the ground thereof.
    Arpead from a judgment ■ in the plaintiffs’ • favor which was rendered, by the District Court in the city of New York- for the . Ninth Judicial District upon the verdict of a jury.
    The action was to recover for goods sold and delivered, to which .(¡he defendant interposed a counterclaim far' work, labor and services, and materials furnished. 1'
    John C. Robinson, for respondents. ■
    Headley M. Greene, for appellant.
   Bischoff, J.

No reply is required- to a counterclaim 'in' ah • ■ action brought in one of the District" Courts in the city of New York (Kuhn v. Am. Aut. K. & N. Co., 9 Misc. Rep. 54), and, in . any case, the defendant’s litigation .of the counterclaim, without . -objection, waived the effect of the plaintiff’s failure to reply., Muldoon v. Blackwell, 84 N. Y. 646.

The complaint was for goods sold and delivered, and the amount for which the jury found for the plaintiffs, and judgment was-rendered in their favor, was conceded to be due and owing from the defendant. The only issue, therefore, which was litigated upon the trial referred .to the defendant’s counterclaim for work, labor and services performed, and materials furnished, in the repair of a boiler, at the alleged instance and request of the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs were' partners, and the defendant testified that-he was directed to do the work by James 27. Clinchy, one of the plaintiffs, but the latter denied that he gave the defendant any such direction. There was, furthermore, evidence from which it was a fair and permissible inference that the repairs were made-necessary because of the originally defective setting of the boiler by the defendant under a contract with one Briggs. Bearing in mind that the witnesses referred to, James 27. Clinchy and the defendant, were each personally interested in the result of the trial,,, and their testimony, therefore, not conclusive, we cannot say, in the absence of any corroborating circumstances on either side, that the jury erred in rejecting the defendant’s claim of employment, by the plaintiffs and crediting James 27. Clinchy’s denial of any snch employment.

Evidence of the terms of the defendant’s contract with Briggs was relevant to the issue litigated, because, if by the terms of the- . contract the defendant was bound to do the repairs, it tended to refute his contention that- the work was done at the instance and-request of these plaintiffs. Platner v. Platner, Abbott’s Select Cases of Evidence, 617; 78 N. Y. 90. The justice, therefore, did not err in the admission of such evidence, or in refusing to strike it out, or to direct the jury to disregard it.

Other exceptions to rulings in the admission of evidence appear in the record, hut are of snch a trivial character as not to require; discussion. Nearly all such exceptions also are invalid because no ground of objection was stated. Cruikshank v. Gordon, 118 N. Y. 178.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

Daly, P. J., and MoAdam, J., concur.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.