title: Laravel Validation - Exception: "Given Data was Invalid"
body: <p>I have a simple controller, Laravel 5.5, with some basic validation but when I enter invalid data, I submit the form and get a "ValidationException: The given data was invalid".</p>
  
  <p>The framework is supposed to redirect me to the form with error messages, but I end up on the big red exception page.</p>
  
  <p>Why would this be?</p>
  
  <pre><code>/**
   * Store blog comment
   */
  public function store(Request $request)
  {
      try {
          $blogPost = BlogPost::where('id', '=', $request-&gt;blog_post_id)-&gt;get()-&gt;first();
          if (!$blogPost) {
              abort(404);
          }
  
          $validatedData = $this-&gt;validate($request, [
              'blog_post_id' =&gt; 'required|numeric',
              'blog_comment' =&gt; 'required|min:3',
              'blog_comment_name' =&gt; 'required|min:3',
              'blog_comment_company' =&gt; 'nullable'
          ]);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here is the controller that is sending me back to the exception page.</p>