Court Opinion

ID: 9572217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:39:43.870453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:56.787671
License: Public Domain

Spratley, J.,
dissenting:
I agree with my brethren on the principles of the law of bailments. In Harris v. Howerton, 169 Va. 647, 661, 194 S. E. 692, 698, I said with their approval: “It seems to be well settled that a bailee of personal property may recover compensation for any wrongful injury to the article bailed while in his possession.” I think, however, that under our Rules and on the record before us, we are not free to consider the applicability of the law of bailments to this case.
The present opinion of the majority states a case entirely different from the one originally heard by us or stated in their briefs. At the first hearing appellant, in her brief and argument, asked for a reversal, relying on Carter v. Hinkle, 189 Va. 1, 52 S. E. (2d) 135, which case presented a question not in point here. The appellee urged us “to reexamine Carter v. Hinkle, and to overrule the same.” Neither party referred to the law of bailment. Perhaps the manner in which the prior proceedings in the Civil and Police Court and in the present action in the Corporation Court were conducted and recorded may be responsible for the confusion which has arisen. I shall, therefore, undertake to point out why the records in the two cases justify our first opinion.
*335The trial of the Civil and Police Court action was concluded on July 3, 1952. The counterclaim of Mrs. Petrus therein was filed on July 2, 1952.
The present action was instituted in the Corporation Court on June 30, 1952, by Edna E. Petrus and Michael Petrus, praying for a judgment of $20,000 covering personal injuries to Mrs. Petrus and “property damages of $207.70.” Obviously, the claim for “property damages” was on behalf of Michael Petrus, co-plaintiff, the owner of the automobile.
On July 18, 1952, Robbins requested the plaintiffs, in the present or second action, to furnish him the particulars of the claims asserted by them. In response, Mr. and Mrs. Petrus filed a bill of particulars on August 7, 1952, in which they stated that Michael Petrus was the owner of the automobile involved at the time of the accident; that he claimed $207.70 damages to his automobile; and that there was a gratuitous bailment as to Mrs. Petrus. It will be noted that the bill of particulars was filed a month and four days after the conclusion of the action in the Civil and Police Court, and that it contains the only reference in the record or briefs to a bailment. Robbins filed a plea of res judicata and estoppel on August 12, 1952, and Mrs. Petrus tendered her amended motion for judgment on September 15, 1952. The amended motion omitted the name of Michael Petrus as plaintiff, and alleged personal injuries to Mrs. Petrus in the sum of $50,000; but there is no order of court allowing it to be filed. Both the original motion for judgment and its amendment show that Michael Petrus and not Mrs. Petrus asked for damages to the automobile.
Counsel for Robbins manifestly thought, when he examined Mrs. Petrus in the Civil and Police Court, that ownership of the car operated by her was material. No question of a bailment was suggested by either party. The answers of Mrs. Petrus indicate that she, like many good women, felt that whatever belonged to her husband belonged to her; but we do not know whether her husband agreed with her theory. Bailment, like ownership, is a subject of proof. *336Whether appellant could have then established a bailment we do not know.
The record shows that immediately upon obtaining the admission of Mrs. Petrus that she did not own the car, counsel for Robbins moved that her counterclaim be dismissed. No objection was made by appellant. She did not undertake to prove that she was a bailee, and no evidence was offered as to her loss of use of the car. No order was formally entered sustaining or rejecting the motion, just as no order was entered filing the amended notice of motion in the Corporation Court. There is no evidence in the record as to whether or not the use of the automobile by Mrs. Petrus, at the time of the accident, was with or without the consent of her husband. It is apparent the parties treated the counterclaim of appellant as rejected, or abandoned, on the theory that Mrs. Petrus, not being the owner of the car, was without a cause of action for damages to it. In accordance with this theory, Robbins has consistently stated in his briefs and argument before this court that the Civil and Police Justice should have immediately dismissed the counterclaim upon his motion to that effect.
As the present opinion states, appellee has not contended in his pleadings or argument that Mrs. Petrus was a bailee of the car operated by her. As we have seen, the only place in the record where a bailment is referred to is in a pleading in the second case, filed long after the action in the Civil and Police Court had terminated. Nevertheless, upon the rehearing the court invokes the issue of a bailment on behalf of the appellee, disregarding the theory of Robbins that Mrs. Petrus had no cause of action on her counterclaim because she did not own the car.
Our Rules are designed to prevent the development of the situation here presented. Rule 5:1 § 4 provides that only error assigned in accordance therewith “will be noticed by this Court.” The clear purpose of this Rule is to require that an assignment of error shall point out with reasonable certainty to the court and opposing counsel the points on *337which the parties rely and to confine discussion to those points alone. Harlow v. Commonwealth, 195 Va. 269, 77 S. E. (2d) 851. Here neither appellant nor appellee made any assignment relating to the question of bailment.
Rule 5:1 § 6d requires both appellant and appellee to print the parts of the record they rely on. The printed record here does not contain the evidence heard in the prior action in the Civil and Police Court.
Under Rule 5:1 § 6e, the part of a record not designated to be printed is presumed not to be “germane” to the assignments of error.
“This is an appellate court, and on appeal we hear cases upon the theory upon which they were tried in the court below. The case there made is the case we hear on appeal.” Liverpool, etc., Ins. Co. v. Bolling, 176 Va. 182, 194, 10. S. E. (2d) 518, 523. Robbins advanced the theory in the Civil and Police Court that Mrs. Petrus had no cause of action because she was not the owner of the car. That was all. Can he take a different position here?
In Kelley v. Commonwealth, 140 Va. 522, 536, 125 S. E. 437, 441, we said: “The appellate court is not designed as an arena for the display of the ingenuity and technical skill of counsel, but to attain, as nearly and as speedily as may be, the ends of justice; and parties litigant may not play fast and loose with the court by taking inconsistent positions at different stages of the proceedings in court.”
“No court can base its decree upon facts not alleged, nor render its judgment upon a right, however meritorious, which has not been pleaded and claimed.” Potts v. Mathieson Alkali Works, 165 Va. 196, 207, 181 S. E. 521, 525; Patterson v. Anderson, 194 Va. 557, 569, 74 S. E. (2d) 195, 203.
“The issues in a case are made by the pleadings, and the judicial tribunals,, in determining the respective rights of litigants, can not go beyond the issues thus made.” Potts v. Mathieson Alkali Works, supra, page 223.
*338Appellant having taken the position stated, he should not now be heard in an attempt to take advantage of an inconsistent point not urged in the lower court. Lavenstein v. Maile, 146 Va. 789, 800, 132 S. E. 844.
A party relying upon a specific ground or action of defense in the trial court will not be permitted to assume a position inconsistent therewith in the appellate court. Central Trust Co. v. Cook, 111 W. Va. 637, 163 S. E. 60.
Mr. Justice Hudgins, now Chief Justice, in Jackson v. C. & O. Ry. Co., 176 Va. 642, 651, 20 S. E. (2d) 489, 493, quoted with approval the following statement from Warren v. Warren, 93 Va. 73, 24 S. E. 913:
“ ‘The parties must stand or fall upon the case as made in that court. An appellate court is not a forum in which to make a new case. It is merely a court of review to determine whether or not the rulings and judgment of the court below upon the case as made there were correct. Any other rule, it has been well said, would overturn all just conceptions of appellate procedure in cases at law, and would result in making an appeal in such action a trial de novo, without the presence of witnesses, or the means of correcting the errors and omissions.’ ”
An appellate court is not, nor ought it to be, required to search for grounds which counsel have not urged or disclosed, or which they are not willing to disclose. It is due to the court, and to the party whose claim is objected to, that the grounds of objection be specified, so that the latter may have an opportunity to meet the objection or to remedy the omission, and, if possible, have the case heard fairly on its merits. Rule of Court 1:8.
Robbins’ case should stand or fall on the issue made. In the Police Court he relied solely upon the theory that Mrs. Petrus had no cause of action for damage to the car because she did not own it. We should not now invoke for him a position inconsistent with his own theory and turn our decision upon an issue never asserted or defended in the lower *339court, and never contended for before us either in the briefs or oral argument.
In 3 Am. Jur., Appeal and Error, § 810, page 352, this is said:
“All points and questions that might have been presented upon the original hearing may be presented on the rehearing, unless the order granting the rehearing limits the questions to be reargued. And where, by a former decision, certain questions were argued, but left open by the appellate court, a petition for rehearing will be treated as sufficient for the determination of such questions as were left open, but no more.” (Emphasis added.)
This principle we recognized in Trust Co. v. Commonwealth, 151 Va. 883, 901, 141 S. E. 825, 145 S. E. 326, 327, where, upon a rehearing, we said:
“Although no such constitutional question was brought to the attention of the court, and was therefore neither argued nor considered, upon the original hearing, the court is of opinion that we should consider and determine a question of such gravity, though raised for the first time in a petition for rehearing.” (Emphasis added.) It is clear that no such reason exists for such an exception here.
While the doctrine of res judicata should receive a liberal construction, it should not be applied to defeat the ends of justice. Hannah v. Beasley, 132 W. Va. 814, 53 S. E. (2d) 729; Gentry v. Farruggia, 132 W. Va. 809, 53 S. E. (2d) 741.
At the risk of reiteration, I again call attention to the following matters of record: (1) The point that Mrs. Petrus was a bailee was not raised in the Civil and Police Court action; (2) That the word bailment does not appear anywhere in the proceedings except in the bill of particulars filed in the Corporation Court action, fifteen days after final judgment in the first proceeding; (3) That the employment of the word in that pleading was immaterial, and manifestly so regarded, because Mr. Petrus was then demanding dam*340ages for injuries to his car; and (4) That the question of a bailment was not raised in the petition for a rehearing, nor in the arguments thereon. The parties recognized that the action in the Civil and Police Court was heard upon a different theory, and consequently they relied only on the theory advanced by the appellee. Their reason for disregarding the question of bailment is, so far as we are concerned, purely conjectural. Nevertheless, this court, on its own motion, takes the case from their hands and makes out a new issue for the first time.
It seems to me that Mrs. Petrus has not had her day in court, and that consequently she has not had a fair trial on the merits of her claim for personal injuries. The theory upon which the appellee relied did not require a consideration of her negligence. If the plea of res judicata and estoppel be denied, appellee will have ample opportunity to defend the action against him on the grounds of her negligence.
If we tell counsel that hereafter we will go beyond their briefs, petitions to rehear, their contentions and arguments to search for points and theories not asserted, and decide the case thereon, we will encourage a laxity of practice, put a premium on afterthought, and promote disregard for our Rules and precedents.
In discussing the question of jurisdiction, Chief Justice Marshall, in the historic case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 175, said:
“It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction, that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that cause. * * *”
While neither the facts nor the procedure in that case are similar to those here, it seems to me that the statement is broad enough to cover the situation presented by the majority opinion.
For the foregoing reasons, I feel constrained to adhere *341to the conclusion formerly reached and to the judgment entered thereon.
Whittle, J., concurs in this dissent.