Case ID: colo-l-rep_1/html/0441-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Stone, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WOOTON v. SEIGEL.
    
      (Supreme Court of Colorado,
    
    
      December Term, 1880
    
    
      Appeal from the District Court of Las Animas County.)
    
    Exceptions to Instructions. Exceptions taken generally to instructions en masse will not be noticed by the Supreme Court on appeal. The particular instruction, or portion thereof complained of, should be clearly pointed out by the exception.
    Same. Instructions given in the court below, and not excepted to, cannot be made available on appeal as ground for'reversal.
   Stone, J.

Nine instructions, embracing nearly as many distinct propositions of law arising upon the facts in the case, were given to the jury on behalf of the appellee. To the giving of these instructions the appellant excepted in the manner following, as appears by the record: “Which instructions the court gave to the jury, to which the defendant then and there excepted.” Error is assigned upon a part only of these instructions.

This court has more than once held that an exception taken generally to instructions en masse will not be noticed by the court upon review here. Webber v. Emerson, 3 Col., 248; K. P. R. Company v. Ward, 4 Col., 30.

Wells, Smith & Macon, attorneys for appellant.

Yeaman & John, attorneys for appellee.

We are not therefore called upon to determine which, if any one, of all the instructions thus excepted to, is erroneous. The particular instruction, or portion thereof complained of, should have been clearly pointed out by the exception.

Two several instructions asked by appellant were refused by the court, and this refusal was excepted to, but the exception fails to specify whether it is founded on the refusal of the court to give each, or only one, of the two instructions prayed. The court then, of its own motion, gave an instruction on behalf of appellant, which, though differing somewhat in language and form, embodies in substance both the instructions prayed and refused, and to this instruction, so given, no exception was taken. Error is assigned upon the giving of this last instruction, but we think it cannot avail appellant to complain here for the first time of what was not excepted to in the court below, and since this instruction contained in substance the legal propositions submitted in those refused, the appellant cannot complain that he was prejudiced by such refusal.

The evidence upon the whole case, we think, clearly supports the verdict and judgment rendered in the court below, and the judgment is affirmed accordingly.

Judgment affirmed.