Angle v. Bilby

25 Neb. 595
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 25 Neb. 595 (Angle v. Bilby) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Angle v. Bilby, 25 Neb. 595 (Neb. 1889).

Opinion

Cobb, J.

This is a suit in replevin brought in the district court for Johnson county by said Bilby against said Angle, to recover possession of two brown mares, three and four years old; one gray mare, three years old; one dark, dun mare, eight years old; and twenty-two head of cattle, and two. gray mares, two years old. Said Bilby, in his petition, alleges that he, at the commencement of the suit, was the owner of the four mares first above mentioned, and that he had a special ownership in the cattle and the two other gray mares, under and by virtue of a chattel mortgage dated March 18, 1885. He further alleges that said Angle claimed to hold said property under and by virtue of a chattel mortgage given him by Hughes Brothers.

Said Angle, in his answer, denies each and every allegation in the petition, except that he held the property under and by virtue of a chattel mortgage given by Hughes Brothers to him. He further alleges that said mortgages given to him were given to secure a valid indebtedness of $740.56, due him at the time he'took possession of said property, and his said mortgages then constituted valid and subsisting liens thereon, and that he has been damaged herein in the sum of $800.

The reply denies all the allegations of the answer.

Trial was had, and a verdict and judgment were entered for said Bilby, and said Angle now prosecutes this petition in error to reverse said judgment.

The plaintiff in error assigns nineteen separate grounds of error, but as but few of them are presented and argued in his brief, it is not deemed necessary to set them out at length. Those argued will be considered in their order.

The first point argued by counsel for plaintiff in the brief is that arising upon the alleged error of the court in excluding from the jury the testimony of the witness .Lit[597]*597tlejohn as to his conversation with the attorney for Bilby. This witness had been called and examined by the defendant, and had testified as to his residence in Gage county, near by to the farm of the Hughes Brothers, mentioned by other witnesses; that he was acquainted with the manner of the Hughes Brothers’ doing business on their farm, of their buying cattle and placing them on their farm, etc. Counsel for defendant asked:

Q,. Had you a conversation with Mr. Sabin, the plaintiff’s attorney?

(Objection made by plaintiff’s counsel, and overruled.)

A. After this suit was commenced I had.
Q. Tell the jury what that conversation was?
A. I don’t see that it has any connection with this case.
Q. By the court: Was that conversation about this lawsuit?
A. Yes, sir.
Q,. By counsel: Go on and state what the conversation was?
A. It was in regard to Mr. Angle and his money. Mr. Sabin remarked that, “ It was easy enough to beat them; all that was necessary was to keep the Hughes boys nut of the way.’

(Motion by plaintiff’s counsel to strike out the answer, as incompetent and irrelevant, taken under advisement.)

Q. In that conversation were you talking about this same controversy involved in this suit?

(Objection made by plaintiff’s counsel, and no answer.)

Q,. State what the conversation originally grew out of —about what suit, if any?

(Objection by plaintiff’s counsel, sustained by the court.)

Q,. State what was said in the conversation by Mr. Sabin?
A. There was considerable said, but the gist of it was that Mr. Angle deserved to be beat, any way; that he had [598]*598been robbing the boys, and all such as that; Sabin said, “We will beat him, Dave, or skin him,” and such expressions.
Q,. By what means?
A. He said all that was necessary was to keep the Hughes boys out of the way.
Q. Did he say anything about the Hughes boys’ testimony being important?
A. • I don’t believe he did; he led me to believe from his conversation—

(Objection of plaintiff’s counsel, sustained by the court.)

Q,. Do you remember anything about hogs being sold and hauled away from the place?

This witness was cross-examined at considerable length, in which he reiterated his statements, when plaintiff moved to strike out all that had been said by the witness in regard to the conversation had with the attorney for .the plaintiff, as incompetent and irrelevant, which was sustained by the court.

The only error which the court committed in respect to this testimony was in admitting it at all; and as it was drawn out by counsel for defendant, no objection can be heard from him in that respect. The witness was not offered by the plaintiff, nor did his counsel, at the time of the conversation, have any knowledge or expectation, as appears, that he would be called by the defendant, so that any conversation had between them, at the time, was entirely disconnected with this case, and no such conversation could bind or prejudice the plaintiff.

It appears from the bill of exceptions that, in the closing argument to the jury, the attorney for the plaintiff used the following language: “Mr. Angle’s actions, gentlemen of the jury, will bear this construction, that if his claim was fixed up and secured that he would not follow Mose; that he would not send him to the penitentiary if he got him. As soon as he got his debt secured, over in [599]*599Ohio, a revelation comes to him all at once; that is, he finds out where Moses Hughes is. The old lady tells him. After he got the mortgage all fixed up, usurious interest and all, and drew the last drop of blood there was in the old lady, then he concluded that he did not want to prosecute Mose. I say, now, at this stage of the action, that his action bears such a construction!” Defendant objects to such a statement being made in the closing argument, in the absence of any testimony on the subject to that effect. Objection was overruled.

This ruling of the court constitutes the second point of the brief of counsel for plaintiff in error. These remarks of counsel do not appear to have been based upon any evidence in the case. It is impossible to say, therefore, what effect, if any, they could have had on the minds of the jury. The objection of counsel for defendant was not made to this line of argument until the counsel making it seems to have closed, and while the court overruled the objection to it, nothing followed the ruling of the court, except it be the presumption that the court may have justified the line of argument objected to. While, in this view, this court cannot approve the ruling of the district court, yet it does not appear that the departure of counsel from strict propriety of address and argument was sufficiently gross as to warrant a reversal of the judgment for that cause alone.

The third point presented is that of property in the gray mare and the dun mare. The evidence shows that they were brought on the farm by the Hughes Brothers after the execution of the Bilby mortgage, and so could not then have been included in it.

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Bluebook (online)
25 Neb. 595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/angle-v-bilby-neb-1889.