Case ID: bradf_1/html/0011-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BY THE COURT.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GORDON & al. versus HIGLEY.
    It is proper for the District Court to direct such a change in the language of the jury as to make their verdict correspond to the usual forms, wherever such change cannot alter the evident meaning of their verdict.
    This may be done without consent of the jury, and is therefore proper after their separation.
    This was an action brought up from a Justice’s Court by Appeal. According to the usual mode of doing business in the Justice’s Courts, in some of the counties in this Territory, there .are no pleadings: and the nature of the action is only determined by the subject matter.
    
    Dec. 1839
    The case comes into this Court, from the District Court, by a Writ of Error, and the error relied on is, that the Court below directed an alteration in the verdict after the separation of the jury.
    
      Rorer, Starr, and Mitchell, for Plaintiffs in Error — Grimes for Defendant in Error.
    Rorer, &c. for Plaintiff,
    cited 2 Wheat. 225 Patterson vs. U. States. — Grimes for the Defendant. The verdict of the Jury can be amended from the Judge’s Notes, 2 Str. 1197 — 1 Wils. 33 — 3 Term Rep. 749 — 2 Doug. 730 — and that, too, even after filial judgment, 3 T. R. 749.
    The defect in the verdict can be remedied by by the Judge’s Notes, or by entering a Remittitur, Cornwall vs. Gould, 4 Pick. R. 446 — White vs. Snell, 9 Pick. R. 16 — Grant on New Trials, 85 — Usher vs. Dansey, 4 M. & S. 94— Rex us. Hayes, 2 Str. 842 — Clarke vs. Lamb, 6 Pick. R. 512 — and 8 Pick. R. 415.
    The case of Patterson vs. United States, 2 Wheat. 225, is not analogous. There the verdict was defective in matter of substance, and the jury omitted to find the issue.
   BY THE COURT.

The only question presented, in this case, is, whether the Court below was right in directing the alteration of the verdict. It is contended by the Counsel for the Plaintiff in Error, first, that the Record does not show the nature of the original action — so that the District Court had no legitimate guide in assimilating the verdict to any of the approved technical forms, and, in the next place, that though the District Court has authority to correct mere clerical errors in entering the.verdict of the Jury, it has none to change that verdict itself, even in matter of form.

In the return of the Justice this action is styled an Action of Assumpsit. The proce dings in the Justice’s Court are not fully set out in the1 transcript. Enough, however, appears there to prevent all doubt as to the nature of the action. Any formal defect, in this particular, should have been remedied (if at all) in the District Court. The Statute in relation to appeals declares, “that, upon the return of the Justice being filed in the clerk’s office, the court shall be possesed of the cause, and shall proceed to hear, try, and determine the same qnew, without regarding any error, defect, or other imperfection in the proceedings of the Justice. — [Laws of 1837, 8 p. 176.) This Court cannot countenance objections founded on defects which might have been corrected in the Court below, and of which, even without such correction, no advantage could there have been taken. We must, therefore, regard this case as though it had been an action of assumpsit, regularly brought and conducted.

We think, also, that the Court below was right in directing the alteration of the verdict. No form of expression could have more explicitly revealed the intention of the jury than that by them adopted. We are not now called upon to decide whether any precise form of words is necessary in a case like this; but, at all events, we-think it perfectly proper for the District Court to direct such a change in the language of the Jury, as to make their verdict correspond to the usual forms, whenever such change cannot, by possibility, alter the evident meaning of their verdict. This may be done without the consent of the jury, or even should they positively object, and is therefore perfectly proper after their separation.

In coming to this conclusion, we are not unsupported by authority. The Supreme Court of the State of New York (7 Cow. 29) have decided, that, in an Action of Replevin, whore the jury merely found “for the plaintiff,” it was proper for the Court to allow “six cents costs,” and “six cents damages,” to be added to the verdict by the clerk, “it being a mere matter of form and incident to the finding of the jury. This was not the correction of a mere clerical error, but the actual finding of the jury was changed by the direction of the Dec. Court. We are, therefore, of opinion that the decision of the Court below be 1839. sustained.

Judgment affirmed.