Court Opinion

ID: 9829181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:03:23.545386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:58.005554
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
All the questions presented in appellant’s brief have been reconsidered upon appellant’s motion for rehearing, and our conclusion is that the case has been properly disposed of. One of the complaints in the motion is that this court failed to make a correct statement as to how the case was disposed of in the court below. We were then, and are still, of the opinion that the controlling question in appellant’s brief was whether or not the trial court committed error when it instructed the jury to return a verdict against the plaintiff as to all of its claim except the item of $200, for which a verdict was instructed against the defendant; and, as the losing litigant is required to pay the clerk of this Court for recording its opinions, w.e did not suppose counsel for appellant would object to the use of brevity in the opinion in stating the controlling question. However, as he states in the motion for rehearing that he desires the opinion of this court to present accurately the facts as they appear in the record, we will elaborate our former statement by adding thereto that the trial court instructed the jury that all of the plaintiff’s claim except the $200 item came within the statute of frauds, and therefore the plaintiff was not entitled to recover thereon, and at first submitted to the jury for their decision whether or not the plaintiff was entitled to. recover as to the $200 item. The remainder of the record relating to that subject is stated as follows in appellant’s brief: “The bill of exception shows that the court submitted for the jury’s determination the liability of appellee for the $200; that the jury retired on October 30th, to consider their verdict, and on October 31st, after considering the case for more than 12 hours, returned into, court and notified the court that they would not be able to reach a verdict. The court thereupon urged them to endeavor to. reach a verdict and had them to further consider the case,, and in the afternoon of that day plaintiff’s attorney was notified to appear at the court’s chamber, and, when he reached there, found the judge of the court and the attorney for the defendant. Whereupon the attorney for the defendant, in the presence of the judge, requested plaintiff’s attorney to *612agree that the court might instruct the jury to return a verdict for the plaintiff for $200, with interest, which plaintiff’s attorney refused to do, giving as his reason therefor that he did not believe the jury would reach a verdict, and, in view of the peremptory instruction given the jury by the court as to part of plaintiff’s cause of action, he would prefer having a mistrial rather than a verdict for $200, The judge thereupon stated that, if defendant would request the court to instruct the jury to return a verdict for plaintiff for $200, he would do so. Whereupon, at the request of the defendant, the court had the jury brought before him and instructed them to return a verdict for $200 for the plaintiff, which the jury did, to which instruction the plaintiff in open court objected, on the ground that the court had already charged the jury as to the law of the case and the giving of the special charge was improper and unwarranted, and was for the purpose of preventing the jury from failing to reach a verdict, and to deprive the plaintiff of the right of another trial in said court without the expense of an appeal; that the special charge given was not the court’s view of the law of the case, as the court had already refused to charge the jury peremptorily to find for the plaintiff the said amount, but had submitted the same to the jury as an issue to be determined by them.”
It is also true that the action of the court referred to is assigned as error, and presented in appellant’s brief, but its counsel, with commendable candor, says in the brief: “We understand that ordinarily the appellant would not be in a position to complain of the action of the court under similar circumstances; but here the court by giving a peremptory instruction was in all probability defeating the appellant in securing another trial of the case in that court under another judge, whose views of the law and the evidence might be entirely different from the views entertained by the presiding judge at the time of the trial.”
It seems to us that it follows as a necessary corollary from the concession made in the statement quoted that, if the trial court ruled correctly on the other issue in the case, appellant cannot be heard to complain because that court instructed a verdict for it on the $200 item, upon the ground that if such peremptory instruction had not been given there might have been a mistrial and the case might have come up before another trial judge who would have made an erroneous and incorrect ruling as to appellant’s other and larger claim. We cannot believe that the learned counsel who represents appellant would seriously insist upon the proposition that a particular act of the trial court which inured to the benefit of his client should be made the basis of a reversal, upon the theory that the action of the court referred to prevented his client from getting the case tried by another judge who would have ruled erroneously upon the main question in the case.
The correctness of the court’s charge directing a verdict against the plaintiff for all except the $200 item was discussed and decided in our former opinion, and we adhere to the ruling then made.
Motion overruled.