St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. McWhirter

159 S.W. 796, 155 Ky. 301, 1913 Ky. LEXIS 241
Court of Appeals of Kentucky·Decided October 15, 1913·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

Opinion op the Court by

Judge Settle

Reversing and remanding on mandate of the Supreme Court.

Following the affirmance by this court, of a judgment of the Hickman Circuit Court, for $3,000 damages, recovered against appellant by appellee for the death of her intestate, caused, as alleged, by the appellant’s neg[302] ligence, the latter carried the case, on a writ of error, to the Supreme Court of the United States, which, upon a review of the record, reversed the judgment of' this court. In due course the opinion and mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States were filed and entered in this court, since'which the appellant has entered a motion whereby this court is asked to reverse the judgment of the Marshall Circuit Court, which the Supreme Court of the United States held it had erroheously affirmed, and also to enter a final judgment dismissing appellee’s petition, before remanding the case to the circuit court.

For obvious reasons the motion for a final judgment here cannot prevail. The contemplation of such action by this court is not indicated by the opinion of thé Supreme Court of the United States or directed by its mandate. On the .contrary,, the language of the closing paragraph of the opinion is: “The judgment of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion;” and that of the mandate, after reciting the hearing and argument of the case in the Supreme Court of the United States, is as follows: “In consideration whereof it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court that the judgment of said Court of Appeals in this cause be, and the same is, hereby reversed with costs; and.that the said appellant, St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company, recover against the said appellee two hundred and forty-one dollars and forty-five cents for its cost herein expended and have execution therefor. And it is further ordered that this cause be, and the same is hereby remanded to the said Court of Appeals for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion of this court.”

In view of the language of the opinion and mandate, the status of the case in this court must be the same as if the judgment of the Marshall Circuit Court had been reversed instead of affirmed by it; therefore, it can only reverse the judgment of that court, the effect of which must be to remand the case to the circuit court, with directions to that court to grant appellant a new trial, to be followed by such further necessary proceedings as will not be inconsistent with the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States.

. _ Section 761, subsection 2, Civil Code of Practice, pro-vides as follows

[303] “If a judgment be reversed, and the case remanded for a trial, or other proceedings, it shall stand for trial, or for such other proceedings, in the court whence the appeal was taken, at the next.succeeding term thereof: Provided, That the mandate of .the Court of Appeals be filed in the clerk’s office of .the lower court, and notice thereof given to the adverse party, if he be in the county; or, if he be absent from the county, to his attorney, ten days before the commencement of such term.” * * *

While such proceedings as are had in this court, fol-. lowing the entering therein of the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, must conform to the. requirements of the mandate of that court and be consistent with its opinion, they must also conform to the rules of procedure declared by the Civil Code of Practice in this, State. Scott v. Scott, 9 Bush, 174; McLean v. Nixon, 18 B. Mon., 758; Western Bank v. Coldway, 29 Ky. Law Rep., 653.

Whatever may be the manner of proceeding in other jurisdictions, there is in this State no rule of practice that would permit this court, in an appeal, to enter, as requested by appellant’s counsel, a final judgment dismissing the appellee’s petition; nor is there anything in. the mandate or opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States that requires it to do so. Such a judgment may be entered in the circuit court if, upon another trial of the case, the evidence introduced in support of appellee’s cause of action should be substantially the same as that introduced in her behalf on the former trial of the case in that court; for in that event, it would be the duty of the circuit court to peremptorily instruct the jury to find for appellant, upon which verdict the judgment of nonsuit would be entered. If, however, in addition to the evidence presented in her behalf on the first trial, appellee should introduce other evidence sufficient to support her cause of action, the ease should again be submitted to a jury. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Goodwin, 151 Ky., 149.

In the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States it is declared that the evidence introduced in appellee’s behalf on the first trial was not sufficient to authorize the submission of the case to the jury, therefore, a peremptory instruction should have been given in behalf of appéllant.

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St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. McWhirter, 159 S.W. 796, 155 Ky. 301, 1913 Ky. LEXIS 241 (Ky. Ct. App. 1913).

159 S.W. 796 (St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. McWhirter) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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