City of Sparta v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 17 March 1892
• Citation: 23 S.W. 182,91 Tenn. 370
• Parties: CITY OF SPARTA v. LEWIS.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

23 S.W. 182

91 Tenn. 370

CITY OF SPARTA v. LEWIS.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

March 17, 1892

Error from circuit court, White county; John Fite, Judge.

Action by the city of Sparta against Pate Lewis for a penalty for violating an ordinance by committing an assault and battery. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals in error. Reversed.

E Jarvis, for plaintiff in error.

Hill & Mitchell, M. A. Cummings, and W. J. Ferris, for defendant in error.

SNODGRASS J.

On a warrant sued out in favor of the corporation of Sparta, the defendant, Pate Lewis, was brought before the recorder of that municipality on a charge of assault and battery, which among other offenses, was one specially punishable by city ordinance, under which he was sued. He was found guilty judgment rendered against him in favor of the corporation for $10 and costs, and he appealed to the circuit court. There, after trial before a jury, judgment was rendered in his favor, and the corporation appeals to this court.

Two objections are made here to the judgment and action of the circuit court,-one that there is great preponderance of evidence against the verdict, and the other that the court erred in charging the jury that, before it could find against defendant, it must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of defendant, or acquit. The language in which the first proposition-that there is "a great preponderance of evidence against the verdict"-is couched is quoted from England v. Burt, 4 Humph. 399. There, in affirming a judgment, the court did use the language quoted that, under a line of cases already settling it, this court would not disturb a verdict approved by a circuit judge, unless there was a great preponderance of evidence against it. The court did not attempt then to make a rule, or to state more than the effect of it. What the "great preponderance" must be it did not suggest in that case, but it referred to a rule already established. That rule was that the verdict would not be disturbed if there was any evidence to sustain it. Dodge v. Brittain, Meigs, 84; Car. Hist. "Lawsuit," § 411; Tate v. Gray, 4 Sneed, 592. Afterwards, when the term "preponderance" was used in this connection, it was put in the form of saying, unless the evidence so overwhelmingly preponderates against the verdict that the court can see it is clearly wrong, and in some cases other terms have been used; but all these expressions refer to the same rule, and mean the same thing, in legal effect and intent, and the rule remains now as it always has been in this court, that a verdict will not be disturbed if there is any evidence to sustain it. Railway Co. v. Mahoney, 89 Tenn. 332, 15 S.W. 652. In some recent cases, to the term "any evidence" of the rule has been prefixed the words "material" or "legitimate," "substantial" or "competent;" but these add nothing to it not already implied in its use without them. Trott v. West, Meigs, 168. They tend rather to weaken the strength of the term, by addition of unnecessary expletives. It was never decided or thought that any immaterial or illegitimate, unsubstantial or incompetent, evidence was sufficient, nor that "any evidence" alone was sufficient, but "any evidence to sustain the verdict." This always meant any...