Case ID: kan_120/html/0064-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mason, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 26,332.
    Atlas Securities Company, Appellee, v. A. G. Copeland, Appellant.
    
    SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
    Appeal and Error — Review—Order Granting New Trial. The rule that the sustaining of a motion for a new trial is not reyiewable where the record does not show affirmatively that the ruling was based upon a pure question of law applies to cases tried without a jury as well as where a jury has taken part in the trial.
    Appeal from Linn district court; Edward C. Gates, judge.
    Opinion filed January 9, 1926.
    Affirmed.
    
      Charles F. Trinkle, of La Cygne, for the appellant.
    
      Arthur J. Stanley, of Kansas City, and Edward M. Tracewell, of Kansas City, Mo., for the appellee; John A. McGuire, of Kansas City, of counsel.
    Appeal and Error, 4 C. J. p. 96 n. 80; 2 R. C. L. 46.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Mason, J.:

This is an action of replevin for the recovery of an automobile under a chattel mortgage. The answer was a general denial. The case was tried without a jury, and judgment was rendered for the defendant. A motion for a new trial was sustained and the defendant appeals from that ruling.

Among the grounds upon which a new trial was asked were that erroneous rulings were made, and that the judgment was contrary to the evidence. There is nothing in the record to show for what reason the motion was granted, or to negative the possibility that the judgment was set aside because in the opinion of the trial court a satisfactory trial of the issues of fact had not been had. In the briefs questions of law are argued, but we have no means of knowing whether the ruling turned upon them.

The defendants suggest that the cases, of which City of Sedan v. Church, 29 Kan. 190, is typical, holding that a ruling granting a new trial under such circumstances is not subject to reversal, are those in which a jury had returned a verdict. That may be true, but the fact of a jury having taken part in the decision is not given as one of the reasons for the rule, and the principle upon which it is based applies in a case tried without a jury, if not with equal force, at least with sufficient force to make it effective.

The order granting a new trial is affirmed.