Church v. Syracuse Coal & Salt Co.

32 Conn. 372
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedFebruary 15, 1865
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 32 Conn. 372 (Church v. Syracuse Coal & Salt Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Church v. Syracuse Coal & Salt Co., 32 Conn. 372 (Colo. 1865).

Opinion

Butleb, J.

In this case the declaration consisted originally of a single count, framed to recover damages for a false and fraudulent warranty of the value of a river landing, of which the defendants had a lease for a term of years, which lease by means of the warranty they induced the plaintiff to purchase. On the 20th day of the first term of the court the plaintiff amended his declaration in two particulars, viz., by inserting averments embracing in the same sale and warranty a lot of coals, and by filing a second count alleging that he was induced by fraudulent representations to purchase the lease and coals. It does not appear from the record that this was done with the assent or actual knowledge of the defendants, or that any application was made to the court invoking its action in respect to. the amendments until the term when the case was about tobe tried, when-the defendants moved the court to erase the amendments on the ground that they were not authorized by law. The court permitted them to stand ; and after verdict the defendants, by a motion for a new trial and a reservation, bring the question whether that ruling was or was not correct before this court. The plaintiff makes several preliminary objections to the consideration of the question presented by the motion, all which will be considered in the order in which they stand on the brief.

i. He objects, first, that the question can not properly be presented by motion for a new trial; for that, as the ruling complained of was an interlocutory ruling, made before and not during the trial, the action of the court should have been put on the record by bill of exception, and revised by writ of or motion in' error.

[374]*374As a rule erroneous decisions upon interlocutory motipns do not reach to and materially effect the character of the trial, and can only be revised on error, and a motion for a new trial is never proper unless the trial has been in some material respect different from that which the party claiming to be aggrieved was legally entitled to, and would have had but for some erroneous decision of the court. But where such decision does reach to and affect the character of the trial, and a correction of the ruling will necessarily result in a new and different trial, there is no good reason why an application for such new trial should not be permitted. If, as is true in this case, such ruling lays the foundation for the introduction of other and different evidence, in respect to another and different subject matter, and the recovery of greater damages, the party is clearly entitled, if the ruling is wrong, to a new, because to a different trial, whether the evidence is admitted because of an erroneous ruling before or during the trial. The injury to the party is the same, the consequent right to a new and different trial the same, and on principle it may as well be applied for in one case as the other.

But the plaintiff urges that the statute of 1830 does not contemplate the revision of an error by a motion for a new trial unless the ruling was made during the trial. To this the defendants have well replied that the authority of the court to allow motions for new trials and reserve them was not given by "the statute of 1830, but by an ancient one, authorizing them for any reasonable cause ; and the statute of 1830, construed as a remedial one, was not intended to limit the prior grant, but to require a reservation of the questions, till then discretionary in the cases specified, for the advice of the supreme court. The first objection is not therefore well taken.

*2. The plaintiff objects secondly, that the allowance of the amendment was discretionary, and not a subject for revision by this court. But, if the defendants are right in their claim that the court did not possess the power to permit the amendments, it could not exercise any discretion, and the objection is immaterial.

[375]*3753. It is objected in the third place, that the defendants waived their right to make the motion to erase by not excepting and filing their bill of exceptions at the time the amendments were made. To this there are several conclusive answers. 1st. The record does not show any application to the court for liberty to make them, nor any action of the court respecting them. The mere act of filing them did not constitute an error of the court admitting of revision. 2d. The record does not show that the defendants had any actual knowledge of them prior to the time the motion was made to erase them, and without such knowledge there could be no waiver. They were in court, but under our practice can not be presumed to have known, after the first three days of the term, during which the plaintiff had a lawful right to amend, that amendments had been made or filed with the clerk, for they were not bound to watch the files for that purpose. The plaintiff was bound to pay cost unless excused therefrom by the court, and the defendants might well presume that if any amendments were made they would be notified of them, directly or by notice of a motion to permit them without cost. 3d. If it was not within the jurisdiction of the court to permit them to be made, the mótion to erase was proper at any time.

Nor was pleading to the declaration a waiver, unless with knowledge that the amendments were part of it; nor even then if their allowance was not within the power of the court. But if they had taken the chance of a trial without moving to erase, they would have been estopped. The third objection must be overruled.

4. The plaintiff further claims that substantial justice has been done and that therefore a new trial should not be advised. As no complaint is made of any error except the allowance of the amendments to the declaration, that is to be taken as true if the court had power to allow them. But the amendments enlarged the issue and increased the damages recovered, and if the defendants are right in their claim that the court had no power to allow them great injustice has been done.

No other objection deserving consideration is made, and we [376]*376come to the principal question, (viz.,) whether the court had power to allow the amendments, and that involves and depends upon the question whether they do or do not change the ground of the action.

The ground of the action, as alleged in the original count, was a false affirmation, or affirmations amounting to a false warranty, in respect to the value of a river landing, by means of which the defendants.induced the plaintiff to buy a lease of the landing to his injury, and the amendments introduced into that count enlarge the affirmation or warranty so as to include in it the value of certain coals embraced in the same purchase. They do not otherwise change it. No other or different warranty, or other and different transaction or bargain are set up; but the warranty is made by the amendment to extend to the value of the coals also. It is a case of purchase at the same time, of the same party, and by the same contract, of two articles, under the inducement of a false warranty as to both, and the plaintiff in declaring neglects or omits to aver that the bargain embraced both articles, and that the false warranty extended to both. Is it changing the ground of the action to amend by averring that the purchase embraced both and the false affirmation covered both ? Clearly not.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
32 Conn. 372, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/church-v-syracuse-coal-salt-co-conn-1865.