Case Name: Mitchell and wife vs. Ehle and wife
Court: New York Supreme Court of Judicature
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1833-12
Citations: 10 Wend. 595
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mitchell and wife vs. Ehle and wife.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wendell's Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 595–595

Head Matter:
Mitchell and wife vs. Ehle and wife.
"Where a jury left it to lot whether the verdict should be for the plaintiffs or for the defendants, and the lot eventuated in favor of the defendants, and the jury found accordingly, the verdict was set aside.
The jurors in this case, which was an action of slander, after an ineffectual attempt to agree on a verdict, left it to lot whether the verdict should be for the plaintiffs or defendants, by placing ballots in a hat, some marked prize, and others being blank, to be drawn out by the jurors; and if more prizes than blanks were thus drawn out of the hat, it was agreed the verdict should be for the plaintiffs, otherwise for the defendants. The drawing resulted in favor of the defendants, and the jury were about to report a verdict in favor of the defendants, when the constable who attended them put before them a paper, intimating that their proceeding was unlawful, and might subject them to punishment; whereupon the jury agreed that the balloting should go for nothing, but determined that the verdict should notwithstanding be for the defendants, and reported accordingly. The plaintiffs moved to set aside the verdict.

Opinion:
By the Court,
Sutherland, J.
The verdict was manifestly the result of the lottery, and not of the deliberations of the jury. It must be set aside; costs to abide the event.