Franklin v. Geho

3 S.E. 168, 30 W. Va. 27, 1887 W. Va. LEXIS 51
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedJune 25, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 3 S.E. 168 (Franklin v. Geho) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Franklin v. Geho, 3 S.E. 168, 30 W. Va. 27, 1887 W. Va. LEXIS 51 (W. Va. 1887).

Opinion

GREEN, Jud&e :

The counsel for the plaintiff in error in their petition for a writ of error do not assign as an error the failure of the court to act on the motion to quash the summons in the case made by the defendant below on October 12,1885, and in stating the case in their brief they say the motion seems to have been forgotten or abandoned, yet they argue, in their brief, that the motion ought to have prevailed, because the land was not described with convenient certainty in the summons; and as an authority to sustain their view they refer to Moore v. Douglass, 14 W. Va. 708, 726. In that case the court held, that after the defendant had pleaded not guilty, and an order of a survey of the land had been made and executed, it was too late for the defendant to make a motion to quash the summons, because the land was not described in it with convenient certainty. Judge Haymond says on page 728, that it was not necessary to make in the summons a minute description of the premises demanded by metes and bounds ; all that is required is, that it should be made with reasonable certainty. In that case Judge Haymond states on page 727, that the description of the land was so loose as to fail to locate it with reasonable certainty; and it is obvious, that it was such a description that i't would be impossible to determine the location of the land. But even in that case Judge Haymond says, that a slight addition to the description would have made it sufficient.

In the case before us the description in the summons, given in full in the statement of the case, is obviously much more minute and definite than is necessary. It seem to me, that, if this description had not been made with convenient certainty, still the defendant could not in this Court under [33]*33tbe circumstances complain, that his motion to quash the summons was not sustained, as the defendant below by his action in pleading not guilty and trying the case before the jury without insisting, that his motion to quash the summons should be acted upon before the trial, must be regarded as waiving any defect, had there been any, for insufficiency of description of the land, as this might be supplied by the verdict of the j ury. But this point need not be decided, as the description of the land in the summons as well as in the verdict was abundantly definite and certain.

The argument of the counsel for the plaintiff in error, that the description of the land of which the plaintiff’s witnesses all spoke, did not identify the premises in dispute, of which they spoke as the same land, as that described in the summons, seems to be, if possible, still more groundless. The witness, Donald Franklin, the plaintiff, describes the land, of which he spoke, as about 90 poles described in the paper shown him, which was doubtless the ■ summons; and he says that this land was the land in dispute, which he was then seeking to recover. He could not have identified the land more clearly, if he had stated its metes and bounds, as the summons did. The motion to exclude all the plaintiff’s evidence from the jury was properly overruled by the court below, as will be presently shown.

The two instructions copied into the statement of this case state accurately the law of the case. It is admitted by the counsel of the plaintiff in error, that the first instruction is correct; and they insist, that it should not have been given only because there was no evidence tending to prove, that the defendant below “ entered upon the land in dispute and forcibly turned the plaintiff below out of possession and kept him out of possession up to the time of bringing this suit.” The other instruction is also found fault with by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, only because it contains the following language : “ detained possession of the same at the date of the issuing of the writ in this case,” whereas it should have been “ detained from, theplaintiff possession,” &c. This is a quibble. The instruction clearly meant exactly what the plaintiff in error by his counsel admits to be law.

Could a jury upon the evidence in this case have found a ' ‘ .' [34]*34verdict in favor of the plaintiff, or is the evidence to sustain the plaintiff’s case of such a character, that upon a demurrer to evidence by the defendant the court should have rendered a judgment, or, if on this evidence the jury had found a verdict for the plaintiff, the court on a motion ought to have awarded a new trial, on the ground that such verdict was un-sustained by the evidence. If such was the character of the plaintiff’s evidence, it ought to have been excluded from the jury; otherwise the court did not err in refusing on the motion of the defendant below to exclude all the plaintiff’s evidence from the jury. Dresser v. Transportation Co., 8 W. Va. 553; Schwarzbach v. Pro. Union, 25 W. Va. 622.

As a demurrer to evidence or a motion to exclude the plaintiff’s evidence withdraws from the jury, the proper triers of facts, the consideration of the evidence by which they are to be ascertained, the party, whose evidence is thus withdrawn from its proper forum, is entitled to have it most benignly interpreted by the substituted court. Schwarzbach v. Pro. Union, 25 W. Va. 642; Miller v. Insurance Co., 8 W. Va. 515. In such cases the law is as stated by Judge Stannard in Ware v. Stevenson, 10 Leigh 164: “In determining the facts inferable from the evidence inferences most favorable to the demurree will be made in cases, in which there is a grave doubt, which of two or more inferences shall be deduced.” And again he says: “ When the question is^ whether or not a fact ought to be taken as established by the evidence either directly or inferentially in favor of the demurree, I do not know a juster test than would be furnished by the inquiry: Would the Circuit Court set aside the verdict, had the jury on the evidence found the fact? If the verdict so finding the fact would not be set aside, it ought to be considered as established by the evidence demurred to.

Applying this rule, did the defendant below make a forcible entry upon the plaintiff’s .land named in the summons, and did he detain the possession of it from the plaintiff at the time the summons was issued, September 24,1885 ? If so, the evidence below was properly not excluded from the jury. It is admitted by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, that the court below did not err, unless it was in not excluding the plaintiff’s evidence from the jury and in not [35]*35Setting aside the verdict and awarding a new trial, if the verdict was in proper form, or in granting the instructions it did. These facts were proven by the evidence thus benignly interpreted in favor of the plaintiff below; and the judgment of the court, if in proper form, must be affirmed by this Court.

A forcible entry, for which under our statute as under the statute of other States the party dispossessed is given civil redress by this summary proceeding, is precisely the same as the forcible entry, for which at common law an indictment would lie. State v. Pollard, 4 Ired Law 305; Butts v. Voorhees, 13 N. J. 13; Commonwealth v. Dudley, 10 Mass. 409. What constitutes such forcible entry is laid down in these and other cases; and they all substantially agree. The Court in State v. Pollard

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Bluebook (online)
3 S.E. 168, 30 W. Va. 27, 1887 W. Va. LEXIS 51, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/franklin-v-geho-wva-1887.