Drake v. Surget

36 Miss. 458
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1858
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 36 Miss. 458 (Drake v. Surget) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Drake v. Surget, 36 Miss. 458 (Mich. 1858).

Opinions

HARRIS, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant in error instituted this suit against the plaintiff, to recover the value of one hundred and fifteen bales of cotton, stored with plaintiff, and lost by fire. The complaint contains six counts.

The two first counts purport to be founded on special contracts, entered into on the 1st September, 1854, by plaintiff in error, as warehouseman, with defendant, “for a reasonable storage and reward,” to safely and securely store and keep the cotton of defendant, “in his Irish shed or warehouse” until he should order the same to be shipped.

The third and fourth counts charge a delivery of the cotton, to be safely kept for a reasonable reward, and to be redelivered to the defendant in error, on request, and aver breaches in not safely keeping and not redelivering said cotton.

The fifth and sixth counts are for money had and received, and on an account stated.

The plaintiff in error filed a general denial; and on this issue the cause was submitted to a jury, and verdict rendered for the defendant in error, for $4404 15J.

A motion for a new trial was made on the grounds,—

1. That the court erred in the instructions given for the plaintiff.

2. In ruling out part of the deposition of Tobias Purcell.

3. The verdict was contrary to law and evidence.

4. The damages are excessive and unreasonable.

This motion was overruled. To which judgment, a bill of exceptions was taken and filed, and the cause brought to this court upon writ of error. It is assigned for error,—

1. The ruling out part of the deposition of Purcell.

2. The granting instructions asked by defendant in error.

3. The refusal of a new trial.

The first ground of error relied on is, that the court erred in ruling out that part of Purcell’s testimony, in which, in speaking of the message sent by Holmes through him to Drake, he relates Drake’s reply thereto. This was previous to the date of the contract, according to the testimony of all the witnesses except Holmes. It in no manner tends to show what the actual contract was. Even [486]*486if it had been communicated to Holmes, it would not still afford any evidence that he had assented to the proposition made.

The “ 'principal fact” under consideration is, what was the contract ? This message and the reply were not contemporaneous with the contract, nor connected with it, nor were they calculated in any manner to illustrate it. They were not, therefore, admissible as part of the res gestae. If designed to contradict Holmes’s statement as to the time when the contract was made, it could not be ground of error that the reply of Drake was ruled out, because his reply to the message of Holmes, could not have more fully established that no contract was then existing, than the message which was admitted in evidence did.

Indeed, the proof was so full on this subject, that no contract was made until in October, that the defendant could not have been prejudiced by the rejection of this testimony, if it were admissible for this purpose.

The. next error relied on, is the granting instructions asked by the defendant in error.

No objection was made to the instructions at the time they were given. They are not indorsed by the clerk as given, under the statute, so as to make them a part of the record. Nor does it appear that any step was taken by plaintiff in error to reserve objections to the instructions, if any objection was made, until after the verdict of the jury, on the motion for a new trial.

Prior to the act requiring the clerk to mark all instructions asked by either party, or given by the court, as being given or refused, the party desiring to avail himself of objections to instructions, was compelled to do so by bill of exceptions, taken at the time. After the passage of that act, the party objecting might either save his objection by bill of exceptions, or by having the instruction marked by the clerk, as the statute required. But if he does neither, and makes his objection for the first time on a motion for new trial, and embodies the instructions in his bill of exceptions taken on the refusal to grant the new trial, such exceptions will only be regarded here, as an exception to the refusal to grant a new trial; and the instructions thereon recited, will not be reviewed in this court. Anderson v. Hill, 12 S. & M. 682; Field v. Weir, 28 Miss. R. 67, [487]*48768; L. Mayer & Co. v. McLure, Administratrix, Opinion Book, 457, just delivered; 4 How. 122; 9 S. & M. 34.

The last ground of error insisted on is, that the court erred in refusing a new trial.

Tbe doctrine is well established by a series of adjudications, that on a motion for a new trial, brought to this court by writ of error, the verdict of the jury will not be disturbed, unless where it is without evidence, or the evidence greatly preponderates against it, or where the verdict appears to he manifestly wrong, from the record before us. 3 How. Miss. R. 219; 4 How. Miss. R. 338 ; 7 How. Miss. R. 340; 1 S. & M. 381; 5 S. & M. 21; 7 S. & M. 715; 8 S. & M. 324, 643; 10 S. & M. 313; 12 S. & M. 336, 604, 614, 615; 13 S. & M. 202, 599, 656; 30 Miss. 387; 31 Miss. 315.

Testing the cause before us by these established rules, we think this ground of error is well taken:

1st. Because the verdict of the jury is without evidence to support the contract declared on. There are four special counts, declaring on a special contract, in each ease for storage “for a reasonable reward,” when the proof shows a special agreement to store plaintiff’s cotton in the brick shed, at twenty cents per bale. There is no count stating a special contract to store plaintiff’s cotton in the brick shed, for twenty cents per bale. And all the proof agrees that there was a special contract, and that this was the sum agreed on, as a consideration for storage. No witness proves any count in the declaration as laid; no witness sustains the contract alleged in the several counts of the complaint, — that the consideration agreed on, was “reasonable reward.”

2d. The verdict is without evidence to support the contract alleged in the complaint, in this : the contract, as stated in the first two counts, is as follows: “The defendant, in consideration that the plaintiff, at the special instance and request of the defendant, would deliver to the said defendant certain cotton of him, the said plaintiff, to be by him, the said defendant, safely and securely kept and stored in the brick shed or warehouse of him, the said defendant, in said town of Rodney, until the said plaintiff should order the same to be shipped, for reasonable storage and reward to him, the said defendant, in that behalf, to be paid by said plaintiff; he, the said defendant, undertook, and then and there promised the [488]*488said plaintiff, that he would safely and securely store and keep the said cotton, so to be delivered to him as aforesaid, in his said brick shed, or warehouse,

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Bluebook (online)
36 Miss. 458, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/drake-v-surget-miss-1858.