Court Opinion

ID: 9830219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:59:09.156886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:16.151148
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
 Appellees in their motion for rehearing earnestly contend that the single assignment of error which we sustained in the original opinion should have been ruled by the principle quoted by this court from Mieh-ie’s Digest, and applied in Taylor County v. Olds, 67 S.W.(2d) 1102, 1106, as follows: “If counsel for one party pursues a line of argument not called for by the facts of the case I and in itself improper and thereby invites á reply, the party so, through counsel, violating a proper course of procedure and the rules intended to secure the' proper presentation of causes ought not to be heard to complain of the reply, and in such cases the appellate courts will not reverse a judgment on an assignment of error based on such facts.” For such principle to be applicable the argument complained of as improper must have some relation to the subject-matter of the argument of the adverse counsel. We do not understand that if one counsel go outside of the record in argument, that adverse counsel may in an entirely different respect also go outside the record and justify same, over proper objection, by the simple fact that counsel for the adverse party had done so. According to the trial judge’s qualifications to the bill of exceptions, the argument of counsel for appellants which justified, if it did justify, the argument in question was that “counsel for defendants had also argued that their client was unable to respond in any judgment for a large amount, or for any amount; that she was not able to pay $1,000, etc.” That was an entirely'different subject-matter from the argument of appellees’ counsel which we have held to require a reversal of the case. In fact, it is difficult to see any point in said argument of defendants’ counsel. In Nicholson v. Nicholson, 22 S.W.(2d) 514, 518, this court held that an argument to the jury by the plaintiff that the judgment could not be collected from the defendant had a tendency to minimize the seriousness attaching to the amount of the judgment “Since the jury could infer that under no circumstances would the plaintiff collect anything.” The error was thought to be one prejudicial to the defendant. It is, therefore, not clear to us that the argument, which it is contended provoked the argument of appellees’ counsel complained of, was necessarily prejudicial to appel-lees ; but, be that as it may, that would not justify appellees’ counsel in arguing the poverty of Mr. Lowrimore.
To illustrate the difference, suppose the argument complained of had been a statement to the jury provoked by said argument 'of appellants’ counsel that the contention was not true, that she was not able to pay $1,000, or any amount, but that on the contrary she could pay any judgment the jury would render, or twice that amount, etc., such argument, though improper, would have been in direct response to the improper argument of adverse counsel, and . would seem to fall within the rule stated. We cannot subscribe to the proposition that mere error in argument by one party can be made to justify errors of the other party though similar if there be no direct relation the one to the oth*152er, and such we hold to be the situation here presented.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.