Court Opinion

ID: 9706143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:32:40.664423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:19.674974
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Crumpacker, J.
In our initial opinion, filed February 7, 1956, we made the following comment.
“Upon the voir dire examination of one Alfred Drews touching his competency to act as a juror in this cause it was established that he had bought a policy of insurance on his wife’s automobile from the Inter Insurance Exchange of the Chicago Motor Club. By reason of this he was challenged for cause by the appellee and excused by the court. The appellant complains of this not on the ground that the challenge for cause was erroneously sustained but because the incident, in effect, informed the whole jury that the appellant was insured by the Inter Insurance Exchange of the Chicago Motor Club which was bound to pay any judgment that was rendered against her.”
*599The appellant contends that this is a misstatement of the record in that she charged error in sustaining the challenge of the juror Drews independent of the effect of the incident on the jury as a whole and our opinion fails to decide that question. We were led to the remarks above quoted by the following statement in the appellant’s brief:
“Appellee stated as grounds for challenge for ■ cause that Juror Drews had bought a policy of insurance for his wife with the Inter-Insurance Exchange and offered to prove that his wife had such policy, and the court, thereupon, excused him. We are attacking the challenge for cause because it tells the jury that appellant was insured. We do not question the right to make the interrogation. It is for the purpose of exercising preemptory challenges. Beyer v. Safron, (1926), 84 App. 512, 151 N. E. 620. There is no question that telling the jury that such company was making the defense , constitutes error. Inland Steel Co. v. Gillespie, (1914), 181 Ind. 633, 104 N. E. 76. What difference is there between the situation in the case at bar? The court’s excusing for such cause was in effect telling the entire panel that this company was making the defense.”
Upon further examination of the record we find that Specification 5 (a) of the appellant’s motion for a new trial is as follows: “The court erred in excusing Alfred Drews for cause, the said cause being that the said Alfred Drews had bought a certain policy or his wife had bought a certain policy of insurance with the Chicago Motor Club, Inter-Exchange Insurance Company.” The assignment of errors is “The court erred in overruling- the appellant’s motion for a new trial.” We concede that this presents a question our initial opinion did not decide due to the fact that the only argument the appellant made in its behalf is the following statement without the citation of any authority to sustain it *600“There is no case that holds that the mere owning of a policy in a specific insurance company is sufficient interest to give rise to a challenge for cause. The challenge being sustained was not only erroneous, but the making of the challenge was error in itself.”
In Indiana the rule is clear that if a challenge of a juror for a cause which does not render him incompetent is sustained and an impartial jury is secured, the cause will not be reversed. Carpenter v. Dame and Others (1858), 10 Ind. 125: Heaston v. The Cincinnati and Fort Wayne Railroad Company (1861), 16 Ind. 275. No litigant has the right to have any particular individual sit on the jury even if qualified as his rig-ht is one of rejection and not selection and if he is eventually tendered a fair and impartial jury to try his case that is all to which he is entitled. We find nothing in the record that suggests that the jury to which this case was tried was not fair and impartial.
Other questions urged by the appellant in her petition for a rehearing are merely the reassertion of contentions originally made and we find no reason to change our views as heretofore expressed concerning them.
Petition denied.
Note. — Reported in 131 N. E. 2d 652. Rehearing denied 133, N. E. 2d 76. Transfer denied 134 N. E. 2d 555.