Court Opinion

ID: 9833344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:38:10.458671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:01.707479
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
It was not intimated by this court in its former opinion that counsel had been unreasonable in the defenses presented for their client, and we fail to see the sarcasm in the statement that “appellant should not be permitted to evade its liability by a technicality which under the facts of this case is absolutely unjustified.” It was intended as a plain proposition, based on the facts without the least touch of sarcasm. No reflection was intended upon counsel who have the right to use technicalities to aid their clients, but such use will not preclude courts from commenting on the evasion of liability through a technicality on the part of the client. This court finds nothing in the definition of technicality in standard dictionaries that should cause feeling or resentment upon the part of counsel when the word is used to describe a defense made by a client. Webster gives no offensive meaning to the word, and Words and Phrases, First Series, says a “technical error” means “merely abstract and *219practically harmless errors.” There is nothing .in that definition that is offensive, or that should arouse any feeling on the part of counsel. We say this in order to remove any suggestion of offense in its use by this ■court. We still think, without intending sarcasm or offense, that the defense that the safe was not broken into because the outer door was not broken, although several locks were broken on inner doors, was a technical defense which the facts did not justify.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.