Opinion
Appeals should not be taken in cases where no principle or question affected with a public interest is involved and the amount of the judgment is trivial, whether the judgment was for the plaintiff or defendant, or the case one to the court or jury.
Argued June 12th, 1930
Decided July 9th, 1930.
ACTION to recover damages for failure to pay for stock alleged to have been purchased by the defendant, brought to the Court of Common Pleas for New Haven County by appeal from the City Court of New Haven, and tried to the court, Pickett, J.; judgment for the defendant and appeal by the plaintiff. No error.
David M. Richman, for the appellant (plaintiff).
James F. Rosen, with whom was Israel W. Cutler, and, on the brief, Albert M. Herrmann, for the appellee (defendant).
On the appeal from the City Court of New Haven which rendered a judgment for $26.40, the Court of Common Pleas reversed this judgment and rendered its judgment for the defendant, from which the plaintiff has appealed. The amount involved is $26.40. No principle or question affected with a public interest is involved. In an appeal from a motion setting aside a verdict of an inconsiderable amount we held in Bennett v. United Lumber Supply Co., 110 Conn. 536, 538, 148 A. 369: "The underlying question in a motion to set aside a verdict of this inconsiderable amount in a case of this character where . . . no principle or question affected with a public interest is involved, is not whether a wrong conclusion of the jury should be allowed to prevail, but whether the State should be subjected to the large expense a new trial would involve and whether the machinery of the court should be used for a considerable period in order to give a litigant the right to try his case over again and perhaps in another trial secure a verdict which would relieve him from paying a small judgment."
The same rule must prevail whether the judgment appealed from was in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant, or the case one to the jury or court. The amount involved is "too trivial to warrant a renewal of this controversy." In cases of this character appeals should not be taken to this court "unless the case be one which involves something more than a trifling sum of money." This case is not of that character. For that reason we determine the appeal without considering it upon its merits.