Court Opinion

ID: 9827112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:11:00.262103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:23.646797
License: Public Domain

On Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing.
[8] Further consideration of this case, on appellant’s motion for a rehearing, has led us to the conclusion that the trial court erred in refusing to permit the plaintiff to take a nonsuit, and that therefore her fifth assignment of error should be sustained. We are now of the opinion that the statement of the trial court, in answer to the inquiry of appellant’s counsel, to the effect that he was going to sustain appellee’s motion to instruct the jury to return a verdict in its favor, was not such an announcement of hrs decision *442and determination of the whole case adversely to appellant as precluded her from then taking a nonsuit. We adhere to the view that, where a motion is made for an instructed verdict, and the court decides that such motion should be sustained, the question of when the plaintiff can take a nonsuit must be determined by the provisions of the statute governing a case being tried before the court without a jury; but after more mature reflection we have concluded that the mere announcement by the trial judge of what his decision will be, although provoked by inquiry of counsel, is not such an announcement of his decision as is contemplated by -the statute, whidh declares that when the case is tried by the judge a nonsuit may he taken at any time before the decision is announced.
A denial of the privilege afforded the plaintiff in a suit, by the statute referred to, of taking a nonsuit, because of a preliminary statement by the judge indicating what his final decision would be, is not, in our opinion, in accord with the spirit of the statute; nor do we think that such a penalty should be visited upon the plaintiff, because such statement may have been elicited by an effort of her counsel to ascertain the mind of the court, by inquiry made in a proper manner in open court, with a view of protecting the interest of his client. The case of Kidd v. McCracken, 134 S. W. 839, would probably support our original opinion, but we note the Supreme Court has granted a writ of error in that case, and stated as a reason for doing so that the court was of opinion the plaintiff therein should have been allowed to take a nonsuit.
There is also an incorrect statement in the original opinion, which we take occasion to correct, to the effect that'in a case where the case is being tried before a jury our statute provides “a nonsuit may be taken at any time before a verdict is rendered.” The statute is that in such a case a nonsuit may he taken before the jury have retired.
For the error in not allowing the appellant to take a nonsuit, 'the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.