133 A. 384 | N.J. | 1926
The plaintiff was injured, and his son, of whom he is administrator, was killed by reason of the collapse of a wheel on a motor car manufactured by the defendant-respondent, in which car plaintiff-appellant and his son were riding. The two claims were combined in one suit, based on alleged negligence in construction of the automobile. At the trial it appeared that the defendant did not itself make the wheels, but purchased them of a well-known concern in good standing, patronized also by a number of other makers of so-called standard cars; that defendant maintained three inspectors at that factory to watch the manufacture, independently of inspection by the manufacturer. The jury found for defendant, and the case is brought here on exceptions to the charge bearing on the duty of care required of the defendant, and on the refusal to charge as requested. The last ground of appeal alleges error in charging defendant's second request. The court did not charge that request. He did charge defendant's request No. 4, but that is not assigned for error. *613
The grounds of appeal are voluminous and several are technically faulty, as containing in each several distinct propositions, and as going beyond the scope of the exceptions on which they purport to be, respectively, based. The first covers two entire printed pages of the charge; the second, a page; the third and fifth, half a page each; the fourth, over half a page. The rule that grounds of appeal, like exceptions, must be specific, and limited each to a single ruling, is well settled.Engle v. State,
There were also exceptions to the court's refusal to charge plaintiff's requests numbered two and three, and to charging the fourth request of the defendant. (It was not charged.) Also, "to that part of the charge wherein the court said the defendant would not be liable for any defects in the wheel which were not discoverable by the defendant after the wheel came into the defendant's possession."
Appellant summarizes the instructions actually given to the jury as quoted in the brief (and we think not unfairly) as follows:
"To summarize the instructions just quoted, the trial court held that the defendant was not liable for any negligence on the part of the wheel company even though the wheel was negligently made of defective or improper wood and collapsed by reason of such defects; that the defendant could not be liable for the negligence of the wheel company; that that company would have to be responsible for its own negligence; that all the defendant was liable for was a failure to make a reasonable and proper inspection of the wheel as a finished product; that the defendant had no liability with respect to the purchase of the raw material; that this was so because there was no contractual relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, and that when the wheel, though defective and unsound, was purchased from a reputable concern, there was no liability on the part of the manufacturer of the automobile except for a reasonable testing or inspection of the finished product."
The authority relied on by the appellant seems to be principally, if not solely, the case of Heckel v. Ford MotorCo.,
We perceive no substantial difference between the duty of an employer purchasing implements and supplying them to his servants, and that of a manufacturer of an automobile, wholly or partly "assembled," buying the wheels to sell as part of it. In many of the reported cases, the claim was made, and properly, against the original manufacturer. Thus, in Tomlinson v.Armour Co.,
The court properly refused to charge that "an automobile is an imminently dangerous article," and properly rejected a *616 long comment on the facts, including propositions of law, which, so far as correct, were fully covered.
The judgment will be affirmed.
For affimance — THE CHIEF JUSTICE, TRENCHARD, PARKER, MINTURN, KALISCH, BLACK, KATZENBACH, CAMPBELL, GARDNER, VAN BUSKIRK, McGLENNON, KAYS, HETFIELD, JJ. 13.
For reversal — None.