McConkey v. Pennsylvania Railroad

251 Ill. App. 299, 1929 Ill. App. LEXIS 498
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJanuary 30, 1929
DocketGen. No. 32,827
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 251 Ill. App. 299 (McConkey v. Pennsylvania Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McConkey v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 251 Ill. App. 299, 1929 Ill. App. LEXIS 498 (Ill. Ct. App. 1929).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Ryner

delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff, in an action in tort, obtained a verdict and judgment upon the verdict in the circuit court of Cook county, allowing him damages in the sum of $25,000. He was struck and run over by a car or cars operated by the defendant and, as a result, suffered the loss of an arm and sustained other serious injuries. The defendant brings' this appeal and says that the trial court, at the close of all the evidence, should have granted its request for a directed verdict; that there was error in the giving of plaintiff’s instruction numbered 1; that defendant’s instruction numbered 17 should have been given, but was refused; that the court abused its discretion in permitting counsel for the plaintiff, in his closing argument to the jury, to discuss the amount of damages to be assessed, when counsel for the defendant, in his argument, had wholly refrained from touching upon the subject; that counsel for the plaintiff made intemperate and prejudicial remarks before the jury, and that the damages assessed are excessive.

The defendant made a motion for a new trial, which was in writing and specified the points relied upon. It was denied. The assignment of errors upon the record is, with one or two unimportant exceptions, a duplicate of the motion. The motion for a new trial, together with the exception to the ruling of the court, is incorporated in the bill of exceptions and set out in haec verba in the abstract of record, but no error is assigned on the ruling of the trial court in denying* the motion.

At the outset it is insisted on behalf of the plaintiff that the record presents nothing for the consideration of this court but that the defendant, by failing to assign as error the ruling of the trial court in denying the motion for a new trial, has waived the right to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict and also the right to complain of the court’s action in the giving or refusing of instructions. Counsel for the defendant reply by saying that they are not barred from urging that there was error in the giving or refusing of instructions; that the trial court erred in permitting the counsel for plaintiff to indulge in improper and intemperate remarks and argument before the jury, or that the damages assessed by the jury are excessive. They further say that “the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict in the case at bar is neither an important nor a controlling question. ’ ’

The authorities sustain the contention made on behalf of the plaintiff that the right to question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict has been waived. The defendant, in effect, concedes this. • The cases also hold that without a motion for a new trial, exceptions to the rulings of the trial court, in the giving or refusing of instructions, and in permitting the attorneys to make improper remarks before the jury, are properly preserved for review by a bill of exceptions. Under the language of these authorities the same rule should apply to the right to question the amount of the damages assessed.

In the much cited case of Yarber v. Chicago & A. R. Co., 235 Ill. 589, the Supreme Court of this State discussed at length the origin and history of the motion for a new trial. It was pointed out that the right to have the action of the trial court in overruling a motion for a new trial reviewed was statutory but that the statute did not have the effect of changing the practice with reference to questions brought into the record by bills of exceptions. The court held that the right to have reviewed rulings of the court during the progress of the trial, such as admitting or excluding evidence, giving and refusing instructions, was fully preserved by a bill of exceptions without the making of a motion for a new trial. On the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict, however, it was held indispensable to the right of review that a motion for a new trial be made and the exception to the ruling of the court in denying the motion properly preserved in the bill of exceptions, the court saying:

“In order to bring the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict before this court for review it is necessary for the losing party to make a motion for a new trial, and, upon its being overruled, to except to such ruling, and to include such motion, the order overruling the same, and his exception thereto, together with the evidence, in the bill of exceptions ; but the propriety of giving or refusing instructions or the admission or rejection of evidence where the rulings of the court thereon have been excepted to and incorporated in the bill of exceptions has always been subject to review, regardless of the fact that no motion for a new trial was made. (Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. O’Keefe, 154 Ill. 508.)”

The denial of.the motion must also be assigned as error. Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Strum, 243 Ill. App. 576; Drake Standard Machine Works v. Brossman, 135 Ill. App. 209. The judgment of the court in the latter case was reversed by the Supreme Court, but solely upon the ground that error had been committed in the admission of improper evidence.

In the case of Pate v. Blair-Big Muddy Coal Co., 252 Ill. 198, the court held that a motion to direct a verdict raises only the legal question whether there is any evidence tending to support a verdict. No motion for a new trial was made, but the court reversed the judgment of the trial court on the sole ground that it erred in refusing to give the peremptory instruction to the jury to find for- the defendant. The case of Yarber v. Chicago & A. R. Co., supra, was cited as authority for the ruling. Other cases holding that an exception to the ruling of the trial court in refusing to give a peremptory instruction to the jury at the close of all the evidence is properly preserved for review by a bill of exceptions, without making a motion for a new trial, are: Wolf v. Chicago Sign Printing Co., 233 Ill. 501; Clark v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 231 Ill. 548; Metropolitan Discount Co. v. Pitsch, 208 Ill. App. 407; Knipping v. Chicago Telephone Co., 184 Ill. App. 48; Stanhaus v. Paradise Coal & Coke Co., 169 Ill. App. 75; Myers v. Buell, 142 Ill. App. 467.

Defendant’s written motion for a new trial specified the points relied upon. Included in the points were matters which are properly here for review upon a bill of exceptions without the making of a motion for a new trial. The question then arises whether the inclusion of such matters in the motion and the failure to assign as error the ruling' of the court in denying the motion constituted a waiver of the right to ask this court to review the same matters by a bill of exceptions. The language of the opinion in Yarber v. Chicago & A. R. Co., supra, indicates that, such is not the law. The court in that case, at least, went so far as to hold that the practice relating to the use of bills of exceptions to present matters for the consideration of a reviewing court was not changed by the statute conferring the right to have reviewed the action of the trial court in denying a motion for a new trial.

The defendant preserved its exceptions to the rulings of the trial court in the giving and refusing of certain instructions, and in permitting the attorney for the plaintiff to make improper and intemperate remarks in the presence of the jury, in the bill of exceptions.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
251 Ill. App. 299, 1929 Ill. App. LEXIS 498, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcconkey-v-pennsylvania-railroad-illappct-1929.