Court Opinion

ID: 9859056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 18:33:27.859728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:05:47.771960
License: Public Domain

Jacobs, J
(dissenting) : I subscribe to the Appellate Division’s holding below that plaintiff wife’s proofs, viewed most favorably to her, as she was admittedly entitled to have them viewed at the close of her case (Honey v. Brown, 22 N. J. 433, 438 (1956)), were sufficient to enable a jury to find that she “was an invitee in the area where she fell, that she was not contributorily negligent and that defendant was guilty of negligence which was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s fall.” But even if I were inclined otherwise I would still be disturbed by the fact that this Court took the case for review though clearly it presented no significant issues and no questions of moment. The framers of the 1941' Constitution modeled New Jersey’s judicial structure on the federal system. There was to be one appeal as of right to the Appellate Division, and apart from certain limited classes of cases not pertinent here, no further review was to be afforded except where expressly granted by this Court under its discretionary power of certification. See N. J. Const., Art. VI, § 5, par. 1; Midler v. Heinowitz, 10 N. J. 123, 129 (1952). That this discretionary power was never intended to be exer*85cised in favor of a second appellate review in relatively trivial cases such as this one is entirely clear from the federal history (see Frankfurter, J., dissenting in Dick v. New York Life Ins. Co., 359 U. S. 437, 447, 79 S. Ct. 921, 3 L. Ed. 2d 935, 943 (1959)), from the pertinent supportive expressions during the 1947 Constitutional Convention (IV Const. Convention of 1917, pp. 7, 150, 202, 203, 283-284, 401, 432, 476) and from the court rule which sets forth the criteria for certification and stipulates that certification is not a matter of right and is to be allowed only where there are “special and important reasons therefor.” R. R. 1:10-2.
In Dick v. New York Life Ins. Co., supra, Justice Frankfurter dealt at length with the federal certiorari practice upon which ours was patterned. He quoted Chief Justice Taft to the effect that the Supreme Court’s function is conceived to be “not the remedying of a particular litigant’s wrong, but the consideration of cases whose decision involves principles, the application of which are of wide public or governmental interest, and which should be authoritatively declared by the final court.” 359 U. S. at 453-454, 79 S. Ct. at 931, 3 L. Ed. 2d at 946. He noted that “questions of fact have traditionally been deemed to be the kind of questions which ought not to be recanvassed here unless they are entangled in the proper determination of constitutional or other important legal issues.” 359 U. S. at 454, 79 S. Ct. at 931, 3 L. Ed. 2d at 946. And towards the close of his opinion, he expressed the thought that the intermediate Court of Appeals was the one charged primarily with the appellate responsibility of examining records for the sufficiency of evidence, and that its judgment on that score should ordinarily be permitted to rest. 359 U. S. at 462, 79 S. Ct. 921, 3 L. Ed. 2d at 950-951. See also Stewart, J., concurring in Sentilles v. Inter-Caribbean Shipping Corp., 361 U. S. 107, 111, 80 S. Ct. 173, 4 L. Ed. 2d 142, 145 (1959); Florida Power & Light Co. v. Bell, 113 So. 2d 697, 699 (Fla. 1959).
Changing conditions and philosophies with increased emphasis on individual rights and protections are presenting this *86Court with more and more momentous issues for determination. These issues must be dealt with justly, thoroughly and expeditiously and the judicial energies should all be dedicated to that end. The approach should be the careful confinement of our discretionary reviews to those important and exceptional cases which patently call for consideration by the State’s court of last resort. Departures from this approach serve unfortunately to dilute the judicial energies and to encourage further applications for certification in cases which utterly fail to satisfy any of the criteria set forth in R. R. 1:10-2. Procedurally I would vote to vacate the certification in the case at hand as improvidently granted; on the merits I would vote to affirm the judgment entered in the Appellate Division.
For reversal—-Justices Fearcis, Peoctoe, Goldmarr, Schettiro and Haremar—5.
For affirmance—Chief Justice Wbintkaub and Justice Jacobs—2.