Court Opinion

ID: 9829914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:43:33.669472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:08.787125
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We have read and carefully considered the well-prepared and interesting motion of ap-pellee for a rehearing. The only issue passed upon by the jury'was whether or not “plaintiff, in the fall complained of in his petition, received any of the injuries alleged in said petition,” and the jury answered “No.” That he did receive a fall and did receive injuries therefrom is not only shown by the preponderance of the evidence but by the almost undisputed facts.
The motion for new trial, filed by plaintiff in the court below, is very short, terse, and direct to the issue involved in respect to the injury, saying:
“Comes now the plaintiff, A. G-. Ahrens, that the verdict herein returned by the jury on May 6, 1926, is contrary to the law and the evidence.
“He further shows that the overwhelming weight of the testimony was to the effect that the plaintiff had a fall from a ladder at the shops of the defendant, and then and there sustained injuries to his right foot, to wit, a fracture of the scaphoid bone, and in connection therewith injuries to the tendons, nerves, and ligaments of said foot. This testimony came from the mouths of plaintiff’s witnesses only, and it was in no way denied or shaken by any proof whatever from the defendant. Plaintiff says that said testimony was wholly uncontra-dicted and undisputed. And said jury either in some error or in some manner at this time unaccountable to the plaintiff disregarded said testimony, and found that the plaintiff was not injured at the time of his fall.
“Said verdict and the judgment based thereon are contrary to the law.”
The sole complaint made against the finding of the jury that there was no injury is raised in the said motion for new trial sufficient to assign error, which was done in the following language:
“Plaintiff’s Assignment of Error.
“The court erred in overruling plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, because the verdict of the-jury to the effect that plaintiff was not injured was contrary to the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence, as shown in paragraph 2-of plaintiff’s motion for new trial.”
This was filed in the district court on the 22d day of September, 1926, and incorporated in this record, which was altogether within the rights of appellant, and properly done, and must be considered by us in compliance with the rules of the court in such cases made and provided.
The motion for new trial sufficiently called to the court the challenge that it, the verdict, was “contrary to the evidence,” and that “it was against the overwhelming weight of the testimony * * * to the effect that the plaintiff had a fall from a ladder at the shops of the defendant, and then and there sustained injuries to his right foot, to wit, a fracture of the scaphoid bone, and in connection therewith injuries to the tendons, nerves, and ligaments of said foot.” ■
In the face of the testimony showing appellant was injured, and however inclined we always are to affirm judgments, the overwhelming and almost undisputed testimony, call it preponderance if you' will, it is our duty to reverse the judgment in this case and remand it for another trial.
The motion for a rehearing is accordingly overruled.