Empire Oil & Refining Co. v. Fields

1940 OK 471, 112 P.2d 395, 188 Okla. 666, 1940 Okla. LEXIS 499
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedNovember 26, 1940
DocketNo. 28791.
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 1940 OK 471 (Empire Oil & Refining Co. v. Fields) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Empire Oil & Refining Co. v. Fields, 1940 OK 471, 112 P.2d 395, 188 Okla. 666, 1940 Okla. LEXIS 499 (Okla. 1940).

Opinion

HURST, J.

This is the second time this case has been appealed to this court. Della Fields sued R. C. Ketzler and the Empire Oil & Refining Company, now known as Cities Service Oil Company, to recover damages for personal injuries claimed to have resulted from being shot in the back of the head by Ketzler while he was acting as a special officer or investigator of the oil company. Although the wound itself is trivial, plaintiff claimed that the shock caused her to have a miscarriage and that as a result of such miscarriage she suffered permanent injury to her female organs. She recovered a verdict for $25,000 at the first trial, and defendants appealed to this court. The judgment was reversed and remanded for a new trial on the ground that there was no medical testimony tending to show that the derangement of plaintiff’s female organs resulted from the miscarriage or the shock, and the court erred in instructing the jury on this issue. Empire Oil & Refining Co. et al. v. Fields, 181 Okla. 231, 73 P. 2d *668 164. After the first trial and while the cause was pending in this court on appeal, plaintiff was subjected to an operation, and she amended her petition to allege that by reason thereof she has become sterile and has reached a premature menopause which has rendered her a permanent invalid and caused her a great deal of pain and suffering. Upon the second trial of this case, a verdict in the sum of $25,000 was again rendered in favor of plaintiff, and the defendants bring this appeal.

There are certain undisputed facts which appear to be substantially the same as those recited in the former opinion as having been established in the first trial. About 9 o’clock in the evening of July 1, 1933, plaintiff and her husband and small child drove their car to a point adjacent to a park outside the city of Seminole near the property of the Empire Company and parked. Across the road from the park was the home of one Mike Plummer. Plaintiff’s husband had driven the car past Plummer’s house, then turned around and stopped almost directly opposite it. Plummer came out, spoke to plaintiff’s husband, and then went over into the park and got a five-gallon can of gasoline which had been hidden behind some rocks and started to take it to plaintiff’s husband’s car. Plum-mer testified that he did not know who owned the gasoline, but had seen someone hide it there that afternoon. Ketzler and another special officer were hiding nearby and when Plummer had taken the gasoline they apprehended him. Upon hearing the commotion, plaintiff’s husband started to drive away, and Ketzler fired his gun in an effort to halt the car. Ketzler says he fired a sawed-off shotgun into the air. Plaintiff’s witnesses say he fired a Winchester rifle directly at the car. Plaintiff says that as her husband drove off she looked back and saw the flash of Ketzler’s gun, and then something struck her in the back of the head. The wound itself was simply a superficial skin wound, at most about an inch long and the width of a lead pencil. The claim for damages is based upon alleged shock and fright and injuries resulting therefrom.

We will treat the evidence in detail when necessary for a determination of the many questions raised on appeal.

1. Defendants contend that they were prevented from having a fair trial because of the misconduct of the trial judge. Under various propositions and at various places throughout their briefs they refer to the remarks and conduct of the judge. The only authorities cited are the line of cases holding that the trial judge should refrain from commenting on, or indicating an opinion in the presence of the jury as to, the merits of the case or the truth or falsity of the testimony. See City of Newkirk v. Dimmers, 17 Okla. 525, 87 P. 603; Settle v. Crawford, 155 Okla. 291, 9 P. 2d 38; Folsom-Morris Coal Mining Co. v. Scott, 107 Okla. 178, 231 P. 512; Sawyer v. Brown, 108 Okla. 265, 236 P. 404; Pressly v. Incorporated Town of Sallisaw, 54 Okla. 747, 154 P. 660.

(a) The only direct comment on the evidence which we find to have been made in the presence of the jury, except remarks made in connection with sustaining objections, hereinafter discussed, came about as follows: A witness who drove Ketzler and Plummer to jail after the shooting incident involved herein testified as to his reason for being there at that time, and defendants sought to show that he- contradicted his testimony on the former trial as to this reason. Plaintiff sought to show that this contradiction was probably due to a stenographic error in the record of the former trial. On examining the present reporter, counsel for defendants asked if he ever knew the former reporter to make a mistake before. The judge then said:

“Oh, every one of them make mistakes. You lawyers all know that. There is no use trying to kid us here, now. If a reporter is infallible, we judges are angels. Let’s get on. They are all good reporters, every one.”

But even though such comment is improper, in view of section 3206, O. S. *669 1931, 22 Okla. St. Ann. § 1068, it cannot warrant reversal unless it violated a substantial right of defendants or “probably resulted in a miscarriage of justice.” The matter here complained of is very trivial. The statement made is one of common knowledge, which the jury would know anyhow, and it is so qualified that we fail to see how any prejudice could have resulted therefrom. It therefore will not justify granting a new trial in this case.

In this same connection defendants complain of the questioning by the court of one of their witnesses as to the truthfulness of her testimony, but as this occurred after the jury had been excused and was not done in their presence, it did not violate the rule under discussion. We will have more to say of this in connection with the charge of intimidation.

(b) Defendants, under their discussion of bias and prejudice, also have much to say about the judge preventing them from proving many things by sustaining plaintiff’s objections. But “a ruling by the judge which is subject only to the criticism that it is not in accordance with the law is not judicial misconduct.” 64 C. J. 103.

(c) Defendants complain that the court impatiently remarked all through the trial about the length of time counsel for defendants was consuming in his examination of witnesses by such remarks as “we will be here until Christmas finishing this lawsuit,” and “let’s stumble along.” We do not think it necessary to detail all the remarks complained of that may be classified as this type, for in 64 C. J. 92, § 93, the law with reference to this kind of conduct is correctly stated as follows:

“Counsel may properly be directed to refrain from delay, or to get on with the trial, or the judge may comment upon a waste or excessive consumption of time in the trial, so long as counsel is not unduly restricted, or his knowledge challenged or his motive impugned; and remarks expressing impatience with counsel, even though perhaps unwarranted, are not fatal where not such as to cause material prejudice.”

The truth of the matter is that counsel for defendants consumed a great deal of time in both direct and cross-examination and spent considerable time on relatively immaterial matters going to the question of credibility. The trial proceeded for five days and the record contains about 1,000 pages of testimony.

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Bluebook (online)
1940 OK 471, 112 P.2d 395, 188 Okla. 666, 1940 Okla. LEXIS 499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/empire-oil-refining-co-v-fields-okla-1940.