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21 Misc. 66

Miller v. Fiss

Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York · decided 1897-07-15

<p>District Courts of New York — Appeal — When a party is not aggrieved.</p> <p>Where the summons in an act on In a District Court of New York demands but $49, a successful defendant can recover nothing but ' disbursements; and where there lis no proof that he has incurred any, he is not injured by an order discontinuing the action without costs, and, therefore, he has no grounds for an appeal from the order.</p>

Relies on People Ex Rel. Geer v. Common Council of Troy · Hall v. . Brooks · Waterbury Manufacturing Co. v. Krause

Decided 1897-07-15

McAdam, J.

¶1It appearing on the day to which the cause been adjourned that the defendants were not partners, as the plaintiff supposed they were, but officers of a corporation known as the *67Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Co., and that such corporation should properly have been made defendant, the plaintiff moved and was allowed to reduce the recovery demanded in the summons from $100 to $49. Ho objection to the amendment was made in the court below, and the defendants apparently acquiesced in it. The question whether the power was judiciously exercised cannot be raised for thé first time on appeal.

¶2The plaintiff thereafter moved for leave to discontinue the action without costs. The application, although opposed, was granted; the defendants excepted to the ruling and took the present appeal therefrom.

¶3As the amendment placed the plaintiff’s demand at $49 the only costs possibly recoverable by the defendants were disbursements. Consol. Act, § 1416, subd. 9.' The pleadings were unverified, and the defendants had no witnesses at any time present in court; so that it is in nowise apparent or even inferable that the defendants were put to the loss of any disbursements by the discontinuance allowed.

¶4Having suffered no legal injury by the order complained of the defendants cannot claim to have been aggrieved thereby, and have, therefore, no right of appeal herein. 2 Enc. of Pl. & Pr. 170; Hyatt v. Dusenbury, 8 N. Y. St. Repr. 713; Hall v. Brooks, 89 N. Y. 33. This makes it unnecessary to go further and decide the question raised at the argument whether" such an order is in any case appealable. See Waterbury Mfg. Co. v. Krause, 1 Hilt. 560. It is sufficient at present to decide that no appeal will lie in this instance. See Nellis v. Turner, 4 Den. 553; Haulenbeck v. Gillies, 7 Abb. Pr. 421. Courts should not depart from the controlling point on an appeal to decide abstract questions from the determination of which no practical results can follow in the case at hand. People ex rel. Geer v. Common Council, 82 N. Y. 575.

¶5The appeal must be dismissed but without costs.

¶6Daly, P. J., and Bischoff, J., concur.

¶7Appeal dismissed, without costs.

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