Case Name: DANIEL v. MANHATTAN LIFE INS. CO. OF NEW YORK
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1905-06-09
Citations: 94 N.Y.S. 49
Docket Number: 
Parties: DANIEL v. MANHATTAN LIFE INS. CO. OF NEW YORK.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 94
Pages: 49–52

Head Matter:
DANIEL v. MANHATTAN LIFE INS. CO. OF NEW YORK.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
June 9, 1905.)
1. Dismissal—Power oe Trial Court.
The trial court is not authorized to dismiss a case because the complaint is lengthy and cannot be understood without an adjournment to read it.
2. Same—New Trial.
Where a case was dismissed because the complaint was lengthy and could not be understood without an adjournment to read it, a new trial was properly granted.
Woodward, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term, Kings County.
Action by Walter Travers Daniel against the Manhattan Life Insurance Company of New York. From an order granting a new trial, defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued-before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, HOOKER, and MILLER, JJ.
Edward S. Rapallo, for appellant.
George W. McKenzie, for respondent.

Opinion:
HIRSCHBERG, P. J.
The action is for damages for the breach of a contract of employment. On the trial at the opening of the case the learned trial justice granted the motion of the defendant's counsel to dismiss the complaint, made generally upon the ground that it failed to set forth allegations constituting a cause of action. The plaintiff's counsel thereupon duly excepted, and moved to set aside the direction dismissing the complaint, and for a new trial. This motion was taken under advisement by the learned trial justice, and after due deliberation was granted, and the order to that effect now appealed from was entered.
It appears from the opinion written and delivered by the learned trial justice upon the second motion that he did not dismiss the complaint because he thought it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, but solely because he had not read it, and therefore did not know what facts it contained. He said, "I dismissed the case on the trial because the complaint, of more than thirty pages, could not be understood without taking an adjournment to read it." The ground of dismissal was not one which is recognized as valid in law. The learned trial justice was therefore ultimately right in deciding that he had been previously wrong, and it follows that the order appealed from should be affirmed. The question of the sufficiency of the complaint has not been considered, and is not determined.
I think it just, undér the peculiar circumstances, however, that the affirmance should be without costs.
BARTLETT and MILLER, JJ., concur. HOOKER, J., not voting.