Pennsylvania Co. v. Versten

• Decision Date: 24 March 1892
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA CO. v. VERSTEN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

140 Ill. 637

30 N.E. 540

PENNSYLVANIA CO.

v.VERSTEN.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 24, 1892.

Appeal from appellate court, first district.

Action by Albert Versten against the Pennsylvania Company to recover damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff obtained judgment, which was affirmed by the appellate court. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Geo. Willard, for appellant.

Lemuel M. Ackley, (George W. Brandt, of counsel,) for appellee.

WILKIN, J.

This is an action on the case by appellee against appellant, a railroad company, to recover damages for a personal injury alleged to have been received through the negligence of appellant's employes in the management of one of its trains on which appellee was a passenger. On a trial in the superior court of Cook county plaintiff had judgment for $5,000 and costs of suit, and that judgment has been affirmed by the appellate court.

On this appeal it is insisted that the appellate court erred in not deciding whether the verdict of the jury in the superior court was against the weight of evidence. For the facts upon which to base this point the opinion of the appellate court incorporated into the record in relied upon. We have uniformly held that the judgment of the appellate court, affirming that of a trial court, in actions like this, conclusively settles all questions of controverted fact in favor of the finding below. The appellate court, by affirming the judgment of the superior court, has therefore decided that the verdict of the jury was authorized by the evidence. But it is said the opinion of the appellate court shows the contrary. If we have been right in our ruling as to the conclusive effect of the judgment of affirmance in that court, appellant cannot be allowed to show that the facts were not passed upon. We have many times decided that what the appellate court found the facts to be, or whether it had passed upon all controverted questions of fact, could not be determined by what was said in its opinion. It is contended, however, that in those cases the opinions were not made part of the record, and therefore the decisions are not applicable here. We are at a loss to see how the opinions of the appellate courts of this state can be said to be a part of the records of those courts, and, if they are not, clearly the clerk cannot make them so by writing them into the record. All that the statute requires of those courts is that, when a decision is reached, the reasons for it shall be briefly stated in writing and filed. To say that error can be assigned upon that writing seems little less than absurd. Those courts are required to pass upon all controverted questions of fact, but they are not required to state in their opinions that such duty has been performed, nor by what process of reasoning they reach their conclusions. Our inquiry in cases from those courts on appeal or writ of error can only be, was error committed in rendering the judgment appealed from? and, in cases like this, that inquiry is confined to errors of law. What the court below may have assigned as reasons for its decision can in no way affect the correctness of its judgment, however instructive it may be, in ascertaining the points upon which the case was considered and decided in that court. We think it clear that, for the purpose of reviewing the judgment of an appellate court of this state, the opinion filed in the case is in no sense a proper part of the record. The cases of Gross v. Mortgage Co., 108 U. S. 477, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 940, and Adams Co. v. liailroad Co., 112 U. S. 123, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 77, cited by counsel for appellant as holding that opinions of courts required to be filed by law become a part of the record, do not militate against this view. In the one case it was held that, inasmuch as the opinions of this court were required by the statute of Illinois to be filed and spread upon the records of the court, such opinions were parts of the record, to the extent that the supreme court of the United States might examine them, together with other parts of the record, for the purpose of determining whether a federal question was involved; in the other, that the opinion of the supreme court of Iowa, incorporated into a record, might be examined for the purpose of determining what construction was placed upon language in a decree.

The second point raised is that the appellate court adopted erroneous views of the law, and the argument upon this point amounts to no more than a criticism upon the opinion of that court. For the reasons above stated, the correctness of the reasoning in that opinion has nothing to do with the questions which we must decide.

Complaint is next made that the trial court erred in giving and refusing instructions. All those asked by the defendant were refused, not, we assume, because the trial judge considered them all...