Smith v. Masten
New York Supreme Court
This was an action on the case for criminal conversation with the plaintiff’s wife, tried at the Rensselaer circuit in September, 1833, before the Hon. James Vanderpoel, one of the circuit judges. The plaintiff obtained a verdict for $3000 damages. The defendant applied for a new trial on the ground of the excessiveness of the damages, and also on the ground of newly discovered evidence.
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This was an action on the case for criminal conversation with the plaintiff’s wife, tried at the Rensselaer circuit in September, 1833, before the Hon. James Vanderpoel, one of the circuit judges. The plaintiff obtained a verdict for $3000 damages. The defendant applied for a new trial on the ground of the excessiveness of the damages, and also on the ground of newly discovered evidence. The facts and circumstances of the case sufficiently appear in the opinion delivered by the chief justice. The cause was argued by
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court,
Savage, C. J.
That the court has power to grant new trials for excessiveness of damages in actions of crim. con. as well as in all other actions sounding in damagees, *271is a proposition often asserted by the courts; yet it was said by Lord Kenyon in Duberley v. Gunning, 4 T. R. 656, decided in 1792, that he knew no instance in which a new trial had been granted in such a case, for excessiveness of the damages, and that courts leaned strongly against interference with the verdict in such cases. In that very case, the damages were £5000, when Lord Keyon thought they should have been…
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