Norcross responded: "Then you decline my proposition? Will you give it to me? Yes or no?" Sage explained again why he would have to postpone giving it to him for two or three minutes to get rid of some one in his private office, and just at this juncture Mr. Laidlaw entered the office, saw Norcross and Sage without hearing the conversation, and waited in the anteroom until Sage should be disengaged. As he waited, Sage edged toward him and partly seating himself upon the table near Mr. Laidlaw, and without addressing him, took him by the left hand as if to shake hands with him, but with both his own hands, and drew Mr. Laidlaw almost imperceptibly around between him and Norcross. As he did so, he said to Norcross, "If you cannot trust me, how can you expect me to trust you?"
With that there was a terrible explosion. Norcross himself was blown to pieces and instantly killed. Mr. Laidlaw found himself on the floor on top of Russell Sage. He was seriously injured, and later brought suit against Mr. Sage for damages upon the ground that he had purposely made a shield of his body from the expected explosion. Mr. Sage denied that he had made a shield of Laidlaw or that he had taken him by the hand or altered his own position so as to bring Laidlaw between him and the explosion.
The case was tried four times. It was dismissed by Mr. Justice Andrews, and upon appeal the judgment was reversed. On the second trial before Mr. Justice Patterson the jury rendered a verdict of $25,000 in favor of Mr. Laidlaw. On appeal this judgment in turn was reversed. On a third trial, also before Mr. Justice Patterson, the jury disagreed; and on the fourth trial before Mr. Justice Ingraham the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Mr. Laidlaw of $40,000, which judgment was sustained by the General Term of the Supreme Court, but subsequently reversed by the Court of Appeals.
Exception on this appeal was taken especially to the method used in the cross-examination of Mr. Sage by Mr. Choate. Thus the cross-examination is interesting, as an instance of what the New York Court of Appeals has decided to be an abuse of cross-examination into which, through their zeal, even eminent counsel are sometimes led, and to which I have referred in a previous chapter. It also shows to what lengths Mr. Choate was permitted to go upon the pretext of testing the witness's memory.
It was claimed by Mr. Sage's counsel upon the appeal that "the right of cross-examination was abused in this case to such an extent as to require the reversal of this monstrous judgment, which is plainly the precipitation and product of that abuse." And the Court of Appeals unanimously took this view of the matter.
The portions of the cross-examination that were especially excepted to were the rejected jurors' conversation with Mr. Sage; the defendant's lack of sympathy for the plaintiff; the article in the New York World; the defendant's omission to give warning of the impending explosion, and the defendant's wealth and the extent and character of his business.
Mr. Choate. "I hope you are very well this morning, Mr. Sage?"
Mr. Sage. "Yes, sir."
Mr. Choate. "Do you remember swearing to the answer in this case?"
Mr. Sage. "I didn't hear you, sir."