Court Opinion

ID: 9657600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:31:12.655062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:46.660877
License: Public Domain

BIEGELMEIER, Judge
(dissenting).
My reading of the pleadings and undisputed testimony of plaintiff shows he owed E. B. Noah, defendant in the trial court who will be so referred to here, $429 for 35 3/4 ton hay and he was paid $25 on wages, a total of $454; plaintiff had $150 wages due him for 15 days labor and $70 machinery repair, a total of $220, thus leaving $234 due defendant on these contract items. On plaintiff's damage claim he testified the property sold was worth $8,000 and the undisputed evidence of the bank employee who clerked the sale showed it sold for $6,446.05 or a loss of $1,553.95. Plaintiff is bound by his own admissions of undisputed facts. Johnson v. Norfolk, 76 S.D. 565, 82 N.W.2d 656. The jury verdict was for the full amount of plaintiff's claim as stated in his complaint — $1,500, which on its face indicates it ignored the court's general and rather unclear instruction to "take into consideration the amount due to the defendant for the hay and * * * to the plaintiff for labor". Neither party excepted to this instruction even though it eliminated the $25 payment to plaintiff and $70 machinery repair claimed by defendant, which left $279 due defendant on the contract items. The instruction became the law of the case. Graham v. Arall, 80 S.D. 13, 117 N.W.2d 491. The jury therefore "took into consideration" only $53.95 of the $234 due defendant under the evidence and $279 due him under the unobjected instruction. The evidence therefore is insufficient to sustain the jury verdict for actual *308damages. Though the assignments of error may not be a model, I believe defendant does raise this question by Assignment X where lack of credit for hay and some other items are mentioned and Assignment XIII, the Order Denying a New Trial, and paragraph VI of The Application for New Trial which called this to the attention of the trial court. The evidence being insufficient in this respect as to actual damages requires a reversal of the Judgment appealed from and a new trial on all issues. I would reverse.