Case Name: Stanislas Dubuc, Appellant, v. Lazell, Dalley and Company, Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1905
Citations: 105 A.D. 533
Docket Number: 
Parties: Stanislas Dubuc, Appellant, v. Lazell, Dalley and Company, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 105
Pages: 533–537

Head Matter:
Stanislas Dubuc, Appellant, v. Lazell, Dalley and Company, Respondent.
Sew trial—a verdict taken by the clerk, by consent of counsel, in the absence of the judge, will be set aside.
After an action pending in the Supreme Court had been submitted to the jury impaneled therein at three o’clock in the afternoon, the counsel for the respective parties, at the suggestion of the trial justice, who desired to depart for his home prior to the usual hour of adjournment, stipulated in open court that the verdict might be received in the absence of the trial justice with the same force and effect as if he had been present. The trial justice thereupon left the court house without adjourning court, and two hours thereafter the jury returned into court, and, in the presence of the counsel for the respective parties and in the absence of the trial justice; the clerk of the court, without protest or objection, received and entered the verdict, which was in favor of the plaintiff. Four days later the defendant moved for a new trial upon the minutes of the court without raising any question concerning the rendition of the verdict in the absence of the trial justice. The motion having been denied, the defendant took an appeal from the judgment entered upon the verdict and from the order denying the motion for a new trial. The record on appeal did not disclose the fact that the verdict was rendered in the absence of the trial justice. The Appellate Division having affirmed the judgment and order, the defendant took an appeal to the Court of Appeals, during the pendency of which appeal it made a motion to vacate the judgment on the ground that the reception of the verdict in the absence of the trial justice had resulted in a mistrial of the case.
Held, that such motion was properly granted.
Laughlin, J., dissented.
Appeal by the plaintiff, Stanislas Dubuc, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the New York Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of New York on the 8th day of May, 1905, vacating a judgment entered in said clerk’s office on the 19th day of May, 1904, upon the verdict of a jury in favor of the plaintiff, and granting a new trial of the action.
The facts are stated in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Laughlin.
L. E. Warren, for the appellant.
George H, Fletcher, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Per Curiam :
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, Hatch, J., concurring in the affirmance on the opinion in the case of Morris v. Harburger (100 App. Div. 357).
Present — Patterson, O'Brien, Hatch and Laughlin, JJ.; Laughlin, J., dissented.
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.