Record Damages

A door opening on nothing last week involved John Pierpont Morgan in a record damage suit in Manhattan. A hammer dropping from loose fingers last week involved Andrew William Mellon in a record damage suit in Pittsburgh. Observers wondered whether damage suits are not greatly conditioned by the fame and fortune of the defendants.

Two years ago Albert Fieri, 19, a lather, was working on the new Equitable Trust Building, partly Morgan-owned. A plasterer sent Fieri to the 16th floor for materials. Fieri opened a door, stepped out into an air intake shaft over the J. P. Morgan & Co. building next door, dropped 165 ft. into a subcellar. Permanently paralyzed with a broken neck, he was carried into court on a stretcher to sue for $250,000. Last week a Manhattan jury allowed him $110,000 for his injuries against the Morgan Company and three other concerns.

One year ago a carpenter at work on the Pittsburgher Hotel, owned by Secretary of the Treasury Mellon and his brother Richard Beatty Mellon, dropped a hammer. It fell through a large plate-glass window in the Frick Building next door. Flying glass cut a 23-inch gash, severed a vertebra, in the back of Mary Hahn, 23, cigar vendor. Last week, after the Mellon lawyers had admitted liability, an Allegheny county jury awarded Miss Hahn $102,427 in damages. The Mellons, through counsel, protested the verdict was excessive, appealed for a new trial.

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