Minnetonka Oil Co. v. Cleveland Vitrified Brick Co.

1915 OK 465, 149 P. 1136, 48 Okla. 156, 1915 Okla. LEXIS 606
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJune 15, 1915
Docket4725
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 1915 OK 465 (Minnetonka Oil Co. v. Cleveland Vitrified Brick Co.) 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
Minnetonka Oil Co. v. Cleveland Vitrified Brick Co., 1915 OK 465, 149 P. 1136, 48 Okla. 156, 1915 Okla. LEXIS 606 (Okla. 1915).

Opinion

Opinion by

MATHEWS, C.

Defendant in error has filed its motion to dismiss this appeal upon the grounds that the time to make and serve the case-made was allowed by the court upon the application of plaintiff in error before the motion for a new trial had been overruled or even filed. It appears that after the jury had been impaneled to try the case and the attorneys had stated the case for each side, the first witness for the plaintiff in error having been placed upon the stand, the defendant objected to the introduction of any evidence on the ground that the petition failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against defendant in error. This objection was sustained by the court, and the cause dismissed, and, immediately following, the plaintiff in error asked for time to make and serve a case-madé, arid, was then granted an extension of 60 days for that purpose, and *158 a journal entry of that date shows these facts. Two days afterwards, the plaintiff in error filed its motion for a new trial, which was, on the same dayjT overruled. The extension of time for the making and serving the case-made appears in the 'journal entry sustaining the objection of defendant in error to the introduction of any testimony and dismissing the case, and no order extending the time to make and serve the case-made appears to have been made at the time or after the motion for a new trial was overruled.

Therefore the only question to decide is whether the order extending the time in which to make and serve a case-made, made immediately following the sustaining of an objection to the introduction of any evidence and dismissing the case before the motion for a new trial had been filed and overruled, was premature. The question hinges upon the proposition whether or not a motion for a new trial was necessary in this case. If a motion for a new trial was necessary, then under the authority of the^ case of Planters’ Mutual Ins. Association v. Rose et al., 27 Okla. 531, 112 Pac. 966, the case should be dismissed. The facts in that case were identical with the facts in the case at bar with only one exception. In that case, at the conclusion of the introduction of evidence, the court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the defendant in error, but before the verdict had been so returned or any judgment entered thereon, plaintiff in error asked for 60 days’ time in which to make and serve a case-made. Two days afterwards a motion for a new trial was filed by the plaintiff in error. This court held in that case, upon sustaining a motion to strike the case-made from the files, as follows:

*159 “The question presented at this time is whether an order extending the time in which to make and serve a case-made before the return of any verdict or the rendition of any judgment has the effect to extend the time for making a case in an appeal from an order overruling a motion for a new trial thereafter- made. * * * At the time plaintiff obtained the order extending the time for making and serving his case, no appealable order or judgment had been rendered by the court, unless the peremptory instruction to the jury to return a verdict constitutes such an order. But, prior to the adoption of the Code in this jurisdiction from Kansas, it had been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court of that state that the sustaining of a demurrer to the evidence did not constitute such an order as might be reviewed on appeal, without a motion for a new trial. Gruble v. Ryus, 23 Kan. 196; Pratt v. Kelley, 24 Kan. 111; Norris v. Evans, 39 Kan. 668, 18 Pac. 818. * * *
“Every reason that would require a motion for á new trial in order to review a decision of the court sustaining a demurrer to the evidence would require such motion to review an instruction of the court directing a verdict. It follows, at the time defendant made application for an extension of time, that not only the time for making the case had not begun, for that begins upon the entry of the judgment or order appealed. from,, * * * but there had not, at that time, been any appealable order or judgment rendered by the court; and plaintiff in error was without any right of appeal. The right of appeal has its incipiency, and the time for taking same begins to run, upon the rendition of the appealable order or judgment. * * * The statute contemplates that, when an appeal-able order has been rendered and entered against a party to an action, he shall have a reasonable time within which to make and serve his case for an appeal, and fixes the period that in contemplation of the statute is reasonable time at three days from the entry of the order or judgment; but the statute provides, when good cause therefor is made to appear to the judge or court, an extension of *160 said time may be granted. In the very nature of things, a good cause cannot be made to appear for an extension, when the court or judge cannot know that the original time granted by the statute will ever begin to run, or that the party applying will ever have a right of appeal. If an order extending the time can be made before there is any right of appeal, as when the court gives or refuses to give some instructions requested by the complaining party, there is no reason why such an order may not be made when plaintiff files his petition or defendant files his answer, or at any other stage of the proceedings.”

That case hinged upon the proposition that a motion for a new trial is necessary in order to present the case on appeal where the court instructs the verdict. We have been unable to find an exact case with the one at bar from our own courts, but in an analogous case of. Burdett v. Burdett, 26 Okla. 416, 109 Pac. 922, 35 L. R. A. (N. S.) 964, it was held:

“A motion for a new trial was unnecessary to enable this court to review the action of the trial court in sustaining a motion for judgment on the pleadings.”

But we find this matter squarely passed upon in Kansas in the well-considered case of Wagner v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 73 Kan. 283, 85 Pac. 299. It was there held that it is not necessary to file a motion for a new trial in order to appeal from a judgment) upon the pleadings and the opening statement of counsel and sustaining an objection to the introduction of any evidence, the court, saying on this question:

“It is plain that a motion for a new trial has no function to perform, unless an issue of fact has been fully determined, and the determination has been embodied in one of three specified forms. Not only must there have been a trial, a judicial examination of the issues of fact, but those issues must have been definitely settled by the *161 verdict of a jury or its equivalent, final and conclusive upon the facts unless vacated. Until that stage of the proceedings in an action has been reached, the condition precedent to the filing of a motion for a new trial dpes not arise;' the single circumstance capable of creating a field for its operation has not occurred; the only subject-matter vulnerable to its attack does not exist.
“There is no such thing as a new trial of issues of law.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1915 OK 465, 149 P. 1136, 48 Okla. 156, 1915 Okla. LEXIS 606, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/minnetonka-oil-co-v-cleveland-vitrified-brick-co-okla-1915.