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10 Bedell 507

65 N.E 494

Cosselmon v. . Dunfee

New York Court of Appeals

Decided November 25, 1902

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1902-11-25

This action was brought to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Counsel for plaintiff asked a witness for defendants the question, ‘Do you know whether they carry insurance for accidents to their employes V This question was objected to as incompetent and objection sustained. While the learned trial judge made a proper disposition of the matter, nevertheless the propounding of the question was calculated to convey an improper impression to the jury. The inquiry into the matter of insurance is not material and the practice of asking a question that counsel must be assumed to know cannot be answered, is highly reprehensible, and where the trial court or Appellate Division is satisfied that the verdict of the jury has been influenced thereby, it should for that reason set aside the verdict.””

quoted by 4 later decisions, including Horsford v. Carolina Glass Co., Emery Dry Goods Co. v. DeHart

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-11-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 94 later decisions — most recently June 1964 · most notably Brown v. Walter (1933), F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Davis (1930)

10 federal appellate · 82 state decisions — followed in 13 states

4001902191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Guriam.

¶1 We affirm' this judgment without opinion, but feel constrained to refer to an occurrence on the trial that has become too frequent in negligence cases.

¶2 Counsel for plaintiff asked a witness for defendants this question: “ Do you know whether they carry insurance for accident to their employees ? ” This question was objected to as incompetent and objection”sustained.

¶3 While the learned trial judge made a proper disposition of the matter, nevertheless the propounding of the question was calculated to convey an improper impression to the jury.

¶4 The inquiry into the matter of insurance is not material and the practice of asking a question that counsel must be assumed *508 to know cannot be answered is highly reprehensible, and where the trial court or Appellate Division is satisfied that the verdict of the jury has been influenced thereby it should, for that reason, set aside the verdict.

¶5 ■The judgment and order should be affirmed, with costs. Parker, Oh. J., Gray, Bartlett, Haight, Martin, Yann, and Werner, JJ., concur.

¶6 Judgment and order affirmed.

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