Watson v. Kammeier

203 Ill. App. 31, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 1031
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 13, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 203 Ill. App. 31 (Watson v. Kammeier) 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
Watson v. Kammeier, 203 Ill. App. 31, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 1031 (Ill. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Boggs

delivered the opinion of the court.

An action on the case was brought by appellee under the provisions of section 9 of the Dramshop Act (J. & A. j[ 4609) against appellant and certain other defendants in the Circuit Court of Marion county, charging that appellee had been injured in her means of support by reason of the sale of intoxicating liquors by appellant, and others to one Charles Woods, which caused his intoxication, and who on the 13th day of August, 1914, while so intoxicated shot and killed the husband of appellee. A trial was had resulting in a verdict against appellants in favor of appellee for $2,750. A motion for a new trial was made by appellants, which on hearing was denied. Judgment was rendered on said verdict, from which judgment appellants prosecute this appeal.

The record discloses that while certain other parties were made defendants to said proceeding, all of said defendants, except appellants, were dismissed from said proceeding on the motion of appellee prior to the hearing before the jury.

The amended declaration filed in said cause alleged, in substance, that appellant, Louis E. Kammeier, Edward W. Mathias, August G-ansauer, John Enrico and William Collinsworth, and each of them, did, on August 13, 1914, sell and give intoxicating liquor to one Charles Woods, and thereby caused the intoxication of said Charles Woods, and that said Charles Woods, being so intoxicated, on said 13th day of August, 1914, shot and mortally wounded Thomas Watson, the husband of appellee, and that from the effect of said gunshot wound, he then and there, on the day last aforesaid, died.

It is further alleged that by reason of the death of said Thomas Watson, appellee has been injured in her means of support, etc. A plea of the general issue was filed to said declaration.

The evidence discloses that appellant and certain other dramshop keepers had sold or given the said Charles Woods liquors a short time prior to the shooting and killing by him of appellee’s husband, Thomas Watson. The said Thomas Watson was a man aged about fifty-one years and was at the time of the shooting the village marshal of Central City, which position he had held for some time.

The evidence further is that he had been called to the scene of the killing, in the line of his duty as such officer, to quell a disturbance claimed by appellee to have been caused by the said Charles Woods. The shooting occurred at about eleven o’clock on the evening of the said 13th day of August, 1914. The evideuce is further to the effect that the said Charles Woods had procured from a butcher shop in the immediate vicinity a rifle with which he shot and killed not only the husband of appellee, but also a man by the name of Douglas Duncan, a deputy, who was at the time assisting appellee’s intestate in his attempt to quiet said disturbance. The principal grounds assigned by appellants for a reversal of this cause are that the court erred in admitting in evidence the record of certain proceedings had in the case of the People of the State of Illinois v. Charles Woods, who had been tried for the murder of said Douglas Duncan; in giving on behalf of appellee instructions numbers one and three; and in the refusal to give the peremptory instruction requested by appellants at the close of appellee’s evidence and at the close of all the evidence.

On the trial of said cause, appellants contended that the killing of appellee’s husband by the said Charles Woods was not the result of intoxication caused, in whole or in part by liquors sold or given to Woods by them, but was the result of insanity on the part of Woods at said time. Over the objection of appellee, the court permitted appellants to offer in evidence the record of the County Court of said county, dated March 12, 1913, showing the said Charles Woods to have been adjudged insane on that day and committing him to the insane asylum at Ama, Illinois. Woods remained in said hospital for some three or four months and was then discharged, but the record does not show whether he was discharged as cured or not. On rebuttal, appellee was allowed by the court, over the objection of appellants, to give in evidence the testimony of certain witnesses to the effect that one of the defenses made on the trial in the case of the People of the State of Illinois v. Charles Woods, charged with the murder of Douglas Duncan, that the said Woods at said time was insane. Mr. E. B. Vandervort, a practicing lawyer at Salem, Illinois, testified that the defense of insanity was made in said canse; that in the opening statement to the jury and all the way through the trial the defense of insanity was insisted upon. Following this testimony the court permitted appellee to offer in evidence the record of the judgment and proceedings of the People of the State of Illinois v. Charles Woods, charged with the murder of Douglas Duncan, which record among other things showed the return of the indictment and the final judgment, finding the defendant, Woods, guilty, and sentencing him to imprisonment in the penitentiary at Chester, Illinois, for the period of his natural life. Appellants insist that the admission of this testimony constituted reversible error.

On the other hand, appellee insists that this evidence comes within the exception which allows verdicts and judgments on subjects of a public nature and judgments, when used by way of inducement or to establish a collateral fact, to be admitted though the parties are not the same. We do not, however, believe that the record offered in this case comes within the exception. One of the principal defenses urged by appellants to defeat the action brought by appellee is that the killing of appellee’s husband by Charles Woods was the result of insanity and not the result of intoxication caused in whole or in part by liquors sold by them to him.

It has been uniformly held as the law in this State that a party litigant shall not be affected by the result of proceedings to which he was a stranger.. In order to be bound by such proceeding he must have been directly interested in the subject-matter of the proceeding with the right to make defense, to introduce testimony, to cross-examine the witnesses on the opposite side, to control in some degree at least the proceedings and to have the right to appeal from the judgment. Persons not having these rights are regarded as strangers to the canse. Corbley v. Wilson, 71 Ill. 209; Bollnow v. Roach, 210 Ill. 364; Whitaker v. Wheeler, 44 Ill. 440; People v. Newbold, 260 Ill. 196.

In People v. Newbold, supra, being an appeal from a judgment of conviction on the charge that Newbold was violating section 57 of chapter 38, Eevised Statutes (J. & A. if 3591), by keeping a common ill-governed and disorderly house to the encouragement of idleness, drinking and fornication, the court on a trial in said cause permitted the People to offer in evidence the record showing convictions of certain persons charged with patronizing the house kept by Newbold in violation of a city ordinance. The court, in passing on the rulings of the trial court, at page 198 says: “The prosecutions under the ordinance were between different parties from those in the prosecution under the statute, and the records of the former were not admissible in the latter for the purpose of proving the character of the house or any other fact upon which the convictions were founded. No man can be affected by proceedings to which he is a stranger.” Citing Gorbley v. Wilson, supra; Whitaker v. Wheeler, supra.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
203 Ill. App. 31, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 1031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/watson-v-kammeier-illappct-1916.