Schultz v. Bower

• Decision Date: 20 November 1896
• Parties: SCHULTZ v BOWER.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

66 Minn. 281

68 N.W. 1080

SCHULTZvBOWER.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Nov. 20, 1896.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. Where a jury cause is called, jury fee paid, verdict rendered, and a new trial granted, a further jury fee must be paid when the case is called for another trial before the jury can be sworn.

2. There were three jury trials in this case, each resulting in a verdict for the plaintiff. She paid the jury fee on each trial. Held, that the fee for each trial was correctly taxed against the defendant, on the entry of judgment on the last verdict.

3. Held, further, that the trial court did not err in affirming the clerk's taxation of the plaintiff's disbursements for witness fees.

Appeal from district court, Hennepin county; Robert D. Russell, Judge.

Action by Kathrine Schultz against John S. Bower. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Little & Nunn, for appellant.

M. C. Brady, for respondent.

START, C. J.

This is the third appeal in this case (see 57 Minn. 493, 59 N. W. 631, and 66 N. W. 139), and was taken by the defendant from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff upon the third verdict in her favor. The assignments of error relate solely to alleged errors in the taxation of the plaintiff's disbursements.

Upon each of the three trials of this action the plaintiff was required to, and did, pay a jury fee of three dollars, and the sum of nine dollars was allowed the plaintiff in the taxation of costs for the jury fees so paid. The defendant insists that this was error, for the reason that only one jury fee of three dollars can be taxed in any case, no matter how many jury trials there may have been. The statute provides that, “before the jury is sworn, the plaintiff shall pay the clerk three dollars as a jury fee, which shall be immediately paid by the clerk to the treasurer of the county.” Gen. St. 1894, § 5368. The object of this statute is to indemnify the county in some measure for the money expended by it in securing and paying a jury for the benefit of litigants. Payment of this indemnity is secured by the statute, by requiring the fee to be paid before the jury is sworn. The mandate of the statute is not, as claimed by defendant, that a jury fee be paid in the action, but it is that, whenever a jury is called for the trial of the action, a jury fee shall be paid before the jury-that is, the jury for that particular trial-is sworn. There is no escape from the conclusion that the statute requires that...