126 A. 249 | Pa. | 1924
Argued May 19, 1924. Plaintiff sued in assumpsit to recover a commission of five thousand dollars claimed to be due him from defendant under an oral contract for securing a purchaser for the Penn Hotel property located in the City of York. At the trial, under conflicting testimony, a verdict was rendered for defendant, which the court subsequently set aside and made absolute a rule for a new trial. That action is the sole reason assigned for error in this appeal, the contention being that in granting a new trial there was a palpable abuse of discretion on the part of the court below.
We have frequently held that the granting of a new trial is within the power of the trial court, and that we will not interfere with the inherent exercise of that authority, except in cases where the record shows an unmistakable abuse of discretion: Hess v. Gusdorff,
"This implied unfaithfulness of the employee to his principal's interest was strongly commented upon by *109 counsel for the defendant in his address to the jury, and to the court, which seemed to have immediate effect with certain members of the jury.
"The court in its charge sought to counteract the probable effect of this matter on the mind of the jury. Its verdict, however, leaves so great a doubt as to the extent of the influence which this incident may have had upon the verdict, that we are of the opinion that a new trial should be granted to make certain of a freer verdict at another trial by the exclusion of such irrelevant and misleading matter from the evidence."
Judgment affirmed.