Miami Copper Co. v. Strohl

130 P. 605, 14 Ariz. 410, 1913 Ariz. LEXIS 84
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 6, 1913
DocketCivil No. 1244
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 130 P. 605 (Miami Copper Co. v. Strohl) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miami Copper Co. v. Strohl, 130 P. 605, 14 Ariz. 410, 1913 Ariz. LEXIS 84 (Ark. 1913).

Opinion

FRANKLIN, C. J.

The appellee, as plaintiff, commenced an action in the court below to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by him while in the employment of appellant, the defendant. The defendant was, at the time of the injury, engaged in the operation of a mine, and the plaintiff was employed as a pumpman, whose duties required him to descend in the shaft of defendant’s mine by means of a cage furnished by defendant. The gravamen of the plaintiff’s complaint is that defendant failed in its duty as an employer to furnish him with safe appliances and a safe place by which to enter those parts of the mine where his duties as a pumpman required him to go. The defendant provided a cage for sending its employees down to the different levels of the mine, and, when the shifts were ended, the cage was used for bringing them to the surface. At other times this cage was used by the defendant in hoisting and lowering the steel drills used by the men in their mining operations. These drills were of varying lengths, rang-, ing from two to six feet long and from one inch to nearly three inches thick, sharpened to a fine point at one end. When lowered into the mine the drills were placed upright in the cage, the unsharpened end resting on the floor thereof. On May 17, 1910, while the plaintiff was in this cage being lowered in the shaft to his place of work, he was injured-quite severely by means of one of these steel drills having fallen through a hole in the floor of the shaft, the sharp end' of the drill projecting upward and into the shaft, -the plaintiff being injured by this drill piercing through the floor of the cage and going through his leg. The defendant denied the allegations, of the complaint and alleged affirmatively the [413]*413defense of assumption of risk and contributory negligence. There were two trials before a jury. On the first trial the jury disagreed, and on the second trial the jury returned a verdict in' favor of the plaintiff for $1,000. After the first trial, but before the second, the defendant made application that plaintiff give security for costs, and the court made .an order requiring such security, but plaintiff filed an affidavit alleging his inability to do so. The defendant questioned the sufficiency of the showing made by plaintiff, and moved to dismiss the suit for failure to comply with the order of the court. The motion to dismiss was denied. After .judgment the defendant moved for a new trial, the motion being overruled. This appéal is taken from the judgment alone. There is no appeal from the order- overruling the motion for a new trial.

The grounds of the motion embraced alleged errors of the trial court occurring during the progress of the trial in admitting and rejecting evidence; in giving and refusing instructions; the insufficiency of the evidence; that the ver.dict is contrary to law and was given under the influence of -passion and prejudice.

The appellant makes twelve assignments of error in this court. The first error assigned involves the denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss the case based on the defendant’s failure to give the security for costs. The other eleven assignments go to the insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict, errors of the trial court committed during the progress of the trial in the admission and rejection of evidence, and the giving and refusing instructions to the jury. The appellant does not—ipsissimis verbis—assign as error the action of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial, and for this reason the appellee insists that, with the exception of the first assignment, the other alleged errors are insufficiently assigned and this court may not consider .them; the reason advanced being that, as these assignments-present errors which are good ground for a new trial, if the ruling of the court denying the motion is not in the very words assigned as error, the error of the court, if any, is .- waived by the failure to so assign.

In support of this contention appellee cites the following cases: Turner v. Franklin, 10 Ariz. 188, 85 Pac. 1070; Put[414]*414nam v. Putnam, 3 Ariz. 182, 24 Pac. 320; Greer v. Richards, 3 Ariz. 227, 32 Pac. 266; Tietjen v. Snead, 3 Ariz. 195, 24 Pac. 324; Lemon v. Ward, 3 Ariz. 219, 73 Pac. 443; County of Maricopa v. Osborn, 4 Ariz. 331, 40 Pac. 313. An examination of these cases will show that they are not exactly in point on the question now before the court. In the first three eases there was no motion for a new trial made in the lower court, and the supreme court 'decided that the remedy appellants sought in the appellate court may have been awarded to them in the court below on motion for a new trial, and until appellant has exhausted his remedies in the lower court he will not be heard to complain on appeal. No such motion having been made, the alleged errors would not be considered. In the last three cases the motion for a new trial, and the ruling thereon, were not preserved in a bill of exceptions or statement of the ease as required by the statute, hence the appellate court could not consider the error in the ruling upon the motion as the matter was not before them.

The rules of this court, in substance, provide that all assignments of errors must distinctly specify each ground of error relied upon and the particular ruling complained of. If the assignment of error be that the court overruled a motion for a new trial, and the motion is based upon more than one ground, the same will not be considered distinct and specific by this court unless each ground is separately and distinctly stated in the assignment of errors. Rule 8 (ante, p. xliii, 126 Pac. xi), Assignments of Errors.

While appellant did not assign that the court erred in overruling defendant’s motion for a new trial, it did assign as error such grounds embraced in the motion which it relies upon for a reversal of the judgment. These grounds are separately and distinctly stated in the assignment, and with such definiteness and particularity as to fully apprise this court and the opposing counsel of the precise error of the lower court of which complaint is made. While it would, perhaps, be more logical procedure and better practice to assign specifically error upon the action of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial, and then follow with each ground of the motion relied upon being separately and distinctly stated, we think a phrasing of the assignment omitting the first re[415]*415quirement, but complying with the latter, is sufficient. It would be a somewhat harsh and technical rule to hold that, where the appellate court and the opposing counsel are fully advised of the errors relied upon for a reversal by a separate, specific and distinct statement of each ground of the motion for a new trial relied upon in the assignment, the failure to formally make the general assignment that the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial precludes this court from a consideration of such alleged errors. This is emphasized by the rules of practice prescribed by the court providing that, if the assignment of error be that the court erred in overruling a motion for a new trial, and the motion is based upon more than one ground, the same will not be considered distinct and specific by this court, unless each ground is separately and distinctly stated in the assignment of errors.

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Bluebook (online)
130 P. 605, 14 Ariz. 410, 1913 Ariz. LEXIS 84, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miami-copper-co-v-strohl-ariz-1913.