Case Name: Seymour Friend, Respondent, v. Morris D. Fishman, Inc., Appellant
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1951-04-12
Citations: 302 N.Y. 389
Docket Number: 
Parties: Seymour Friend, Respondent, v. Morris D. Fishman, Inc., Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 302
Pages: 389–390

Head Matter:
Seymour Friend, Respondent, v. Morris D. Fishman, Inc., Appellant.
Argued March 5, 1951;
decided April 12, 1951.
S. Sawyer Le Vay for appellant.
The jury obviously rendered a compromise verdict which the court should have set aside on appellant’s motion. (Angresani v. Tozzi, 217 App. Div. 642, 245 N. Y. 558; Blackwell v. Glidden Co., 208 App. Div. 317, 239 N. Y. 545; Clark v. Foreign Products Co., 194 App. Div. 284; Ferguson v. Chuck, 194 App. Div. 583; Hatch v. Attrill, 118 N. Y. 383; Breymann v. Morris & Cummings Dredging Co., 202 App. Div. 464; Delisky v. Leonard, 189 App. Div. 623.)
Milton M. Mokotoff for respondent.
The jury’s verdict was not a compromise. (Hollwedel v. Duffy-Mott Co., 263 N. Y. 95; McClelland v. Climax Hosiery Mills, 252 N. Y. 347; Davis v. Dodge, 126 App. Div. 469; Koehler v. Adler, 78 N. Y. 287; Poel v. Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co., 159 App. Div. 365.)

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
The court explicitly and without objection instructed the jurors that, if they found that plaintiff and defendant had entered into a contract for employment, they were under the necessity of returning a verdict for $3,360 — and that was a proper charge, since there was nothing to show that plaintiff was entitled to a penny less than that amount as damages. The ensuing verdict for the lesser sum of $2,400 was a compromise, rendered in disregard of both evidence and charge and may not stand. (See, e.g., Angresani v. Tozzi, 245 N. Y. 558, affg. 217 App. Div. 642; Blackwell v. Glidden Co., 239 N. Y. 545, affg. 208 App. Div. 317; Hatch v. Attrill, 118 N. Y. 383, 389; Van Der Harst v. Koenig, 249 App. Div. 235, 236.)
The judgments should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to abide the event.
Loughran, Ch. J., Lewis, Conway, Desmond, Dye, Fuld and Froessel, JJ., concur.
Judgments reversed, etc.