City of Lincoln v. Power

• Decision Date: 29 January 1894
• Docket Number: No. 505,505
• Parties: CITY OF LINCOLN v. Power
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

151 U.S. 436

14 S.Ct. 387

38 L.Ed. 224

CITY OF LINCOLN

v Power

No. 505.

January 29, 1894.

Statement by Mr. Justice SHIRAS.

This was an action brought, at January term, 1891, in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nebraska, by Margaret J. Power, a citizen of the state of Iowa, against the city of Lincoln, a municipal corporation of the state of Nebraska, for personal injuries which the plaintiff incurred while passing along a street of said city, and which she alleged had been occasioned by the carelessness and negligence of the municipal authorities in permitting a hole or broken grating to remain in a sidewalk after having been notified of its existence.

The cause was tried before the district judge, sitting as circuit judge, and a jury, and resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of $5,700. The defendant, alleging error in the action of the court below in admitting certain matters in evidence offered in behalf of the plaintiff, and in rejecting others offered in behalf of the defendant, and in certain instructions to the jury, brought a writ of error to this court.

L. C. Burr, for plaintiff in error.

T. M. Marquett, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error complains that the damages found by the jury were excessive, and appear to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice.

But it is not permitted for this court, sitting as a court of errors, in a case wherein damages have been fixed by the verdict of a jury, to take notice of an assignment of this character, where the complaint is only of the action of the jury.

Thus it was said in Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 448, per Story, J., commenting on that clause of the seventh amendment which declares clares 'no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examinable, in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law,' that 'this is a prohibition to the courts of the United States to re-examine any facts tried by a jury in any other manner. The only modes known to the common law to re-examine such facts are the granting of a new trial by the court where the issue was tried, or to which the record was properly returnable; or the award of venire facias de novo by an appellate court, for some error of law which intervened in the proceedings.'

In Railroad Co. v. Fraloff, 100 U. S. 31, this court said: 'No error of law appearing upon this record, this court cannot reverse the judgment because, upon an examination of the evidence, we may be of the opinion that the jury should have returned a verdict for a less amount. If the jury acted upon a gross mistake of facts, or were governed by some improper influence or bias, the remedy therefor rested with the court below, under its general power to set aside the verdict. But that court, finding that the verdict was abundantly sustained by the evidence, and that there was no ground to suppose that the jury had not performed their duty impartially and justly, refused to disturb the verdict, and overruled a motion for a new trial. Whether its action, in that particular, was erroneous or not, our power is restricted by the constitution to the determination of the questions of law arising upon the record. Our authority does not extend to a re-examination of facts which have been tried by the jury under instructions correctly defining the legal rights of the parties.'

But where there is no reason to complain of the instructions, an error of the jury in allowing an unreasonable amount is to be redressed by a motion for a new trial.

In the present case such a motion was ineffectually made, the court below evidently regarding the verdict as justified by the evidence. And, apart from the question of our power to consider the subject, we find nothing presented in this record that seems to show that the jury, in the particular complained of, acted against the rules of law, or suffered their prejudices to lead them to a perverse disregard of justice.

Error is assigned to the refusal of the court to charge the jury that, under all the evidence and the law in the case, the defendant was entitled to the verdict.

Our examination of the evidence does not enable us to see error in the refusal of the court to so charge. The issues before the jury were very plain. Were the injuries of the plaintiff caused by her falling into a hole in the sidewalk? Was the existence of this hole or imperfection in the sidewalk known to the defendant in circumstances and for such a length of time as to have made it the duty of the defendant, as a municipal corporation having control over its streets, to repair the defect, or be responsible for a failure to do so? Was the plaintiff herself guilty of negligence in overlooking the hole in the walk, or in walking upon a portion of the walk where she had no right to go?

The evidence adduced by the plaintiff certainly tended to establish her side of the issue in all these questions, and, if not successfully contradicted by the defendant's evidence, warranted the jury in finding a verdict in her favor. The defendant's evidence, though contradictory, in some particulars, of that put in by the plaintiff, did not make out a case so clear and indisputable as would have justified the court in giving the peremptory instruction requested.

If, then, no errors were committed by the court below in the admission or exclusion of evidence, or in its charge to the jury, the verdict and judgment must be permitted to stand. Such errors are, however, assigned, and will now receive our attention

The court permitted the plaintiff to put in evidence a bill or statement of her claim against the city, which she had served on the city council, and to this the defendant excepted.

It is not easy to see what purpose was served by this evidence. The judge stated, in the charge to the jury, that such a notice is required by the law before an action is commenced, and as this assignment is not pressed in the plaintiff in error's brief, we do not feel constrained to give it much importance. To permit the plaintiff to show that she made such a claim or gave such a notice, whether required so to do by the law or not, would not seem to be reversible error.

We see...