Court Opinion

ID: 9826860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 16:48:23.043266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:56:41.218744
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION FOE A EEHjEAEING.
This cause is again before us on petition for a rehearing, complainant insisting that the cause should not have been remanded for a new trial but instead a final decree should have been entered in this court. This insistence cannot be sustained for the reason that when a jury has b^en demanded in the Chancery Court “the trial shall be conducted like other jury trials at law, the finding of tne jury having the same force and effect, and the court having the same power and control over the finding, as on such trials at law." Shannon’s Code, sec. 6286. The cause is then tried by a jury according to the forms of a court of law. Shannon’s Code, sec. 4888.
The verdict of a. jury is not final until it is approved by the trial judge. He has a right to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial. He is the thirteenth juror. As stated by us in the former opinion, he had no .right to disregard the verdict of the jury on material issues where there was material evidence to support it and to render a judgment contrary to the verdict. His only recourse, if he did not approve the verdict, was to set it aside and grant a new trial. Gibson’s Suits in Chancery, sec. 552; Gass v. Mason, 4 Sneed, 509.
We have no power to enter a judgment on the verdict of the jury without the assent of the trial judge. There is a line of cases where the trial judge approved the verdict of the jury but did not render the proper judgment, upon appeal this court will enter such judgment as the trial court should have rendered. Nighbert v. Hornsby, 100 Tenn., 82, 42 S. W., 1060; Sword v. State, 5 Humph., 102. But these cases have no application to the one at bar where the trial judge has not approved the verdict of the jury.
It results that the petition to rehear must be denied.
Faw, P. J., and DeWitt, J., concur.