Court Opinion

ID: 7948716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 23:23:51.64827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:02.991155
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Bird, J.
Upon the rehearing in this case, counsel for defendants questioned the rule laid down by this court for the submission of special questions to the jury. In holding that the trial court was not in error in refusing to submit the proffered questions, it was said in the opinion:
“Neither question, standing by itself, calls for an answer which would have been controlling. Under the statute which allows the submission of special questions they must be so framed as to call for an answer which may be controlling of the main issue.”
We were persuaded by the discussion had upon the rehearing that this construction given the statute (3 Comp. Laws, § 10237) was rather too restricted. While no express construction of this phase of the statute appears to have been made by this court, we are of the opinion that if the questions proposed, taken singly or as a whole, call for findings which might be controlling of the main issue, they should be submitted by the trial court. The questions in controversy, which are set out in the opinion, taken together, come *568within this rule, and therefore should have been submitted. The statute appears to be mandatory that questions shall be submitted if proper in form and substance. Zucker v. Karpeles, 88 Mich. 413 (50 N. W. 373). For this error the judgment'must be set aside and a new trial granted.
Inasmuch as the case must go back for retrial, another question will be adverted to. The files and judgment entry of a former judgment in ejectment between the same parties with reference to the same premises were received in evidence and read to the jury, over defendants’ objection. Their admission was urged upon the ground that they showed the bad faith of the defendant Wright in claiming that her grantor had . title by adverse possession, because she had not made that claim on the former trial, and for the further reason that it was a link in the chain of plaintiff’s title. As bearing upon the good faith of the defendant, we see no objection to plaintiff showing by the pleadings or by the cross-examination of defendant that she did not make that claim on the former trial, but we doubt the propriety of permitting the judgment to be read to the jury. The jury should not be advised what the outcome of a former trial was, unless some good reason exists therefor, and,none is apparent here. The record of the judgment was not competent on the other ground assigned, because a single judgment in ejectment is not necessarily final. Rice v. Auditor General, 30 Mich. 12.
Defendants will recover their costs in this court.
Brooke, C. J., and Person, Kuhn, Stone, Ostrander, Moore, and Steere, JJ., concurred.