Ferguson v. Poling, Inc.

1 Citing case

  1. Akermanis v. Sea-Land Service, Inc.

    688 F.2d 898 (2d Cir. 1982)   Cited 63 times
    Holding that plaintiff could not be asked to accept an increase in the contributory negligence percentage, and thus a decrease in the judgment, as the price of avoiding a new trial

    We have located only one case in which a trial court attempted to use the remittitur device to adjust a jury's contributory negligence assessment, and that decision did not survive appellate review. In Ferguson v. Chester A. Poling, Inc., 285 N.Y.S. 340, 247 A.D. 727 (2d Dep't 1936) (per curiam), also a Jones Act case, the jury found that the plaintiff had suffered damages of $25,000, and then reduced this sum by $5,000 because the plaintiff's contributory negligence was a 20 percent cause of the accident. The trial court thought the lowest reasonable contributory negligence factor was 60 percent and therefore ordered a new trial unless the plaintiff agreed to a reduction in the judgment from $20,000 to $10,000.