## Facts

- A fire damaged I. William Lane and Betty G. Lane’s home and destroyed household contents after Oil Delivery, Inc. serviced the home’s oil-burner system.
- The homeowners and their insurer (as subrogee) sued Oil Delivery alleging negligence, breach of contract, and strict liability; Oil Delivery asserted comparative negligence by the homeowners.
- Disputed trial issues included whether Oil Delivery negligently serviced the burner and whether the homeowners acted unreasonably by storing items (including fireplace logs) near the burner area.
- The homeowners sought damages for extensive personal property losses (furnishings, clothing, jewelry, and other items) using a detailed inventory with claimed replacement values and testimony explaining selected valuations.

## Issues

1. Whether the jury’s allocation of comparative fault (60% Oil Delivery / 40% homeowners) was against the weight of the evidence.
2. What measure of damages applies to used household furnishings and personal apparel destroyed in a fire, and whether the jury was properly instructed.
3. Whether the homeowners’ owner-opinion testimony and itemized lists were properly admitted and sufficient to support the personal property award.
4. Whether the trial court erred by permitting a finding of homeowner negligence for storing logs near the burner and by declining to charge strict liability for servicemen.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the liability verdict, including the findings that both parties were negligent, that each party’s negligence proximately caused the fire, and the 60/40 apportionment of fault.
- The court rejected the homeowners’ cross-appeal arguments that the jury could not find them negligent based on log storage and that a strict-liability instruction for servicemen was required.
- The court reversed the personal property damages award as to general household goods and apparel and remanded for a new trial limited to that damages issue.
- The court left undisturbed other components of the judgment not affected by the personalty-valuation error.

## Legal Principles

- Comparative-negligence allocations by a jury are not disturbed on appeal absent a clear showing the verdict is plainly against the weight of the evidence or results in manifest injustice.
- For used household furnishings and personal apparel destroyed by casualty, damages are measured by the items’ intrinsic value to the owner as used property, excluding sentimental or fanciful value; replacement cost and second-hand market value are not controlling.
- An owner is generally competent to give opinion testimony on the value of personal belongings, but the factfinder must apply the correct legal measure of value.
- Damages need not be proven with mathematical precision, but must be shown with reasonable certainty consistent with the nature of the claim and may not rest on speculation.
- When an instructional or methodological error affects only a separable component of damages, the remedy may be a new trial limited to that component rather than a retrial of liability.

## Conclusion

The Appellate Division upheld the jury’s negligence and comparative-fault findings but required a limited retrial on damages for destroyed household goods and clothing because the personalty award was not grounded in the intrinsic-value standard governing used household property.


Lane v. Oil Delivery, Inc., 216 N.J. Super. 413, 524 A.2d 405 (App. Div. 1987)