East Tennessee, V. & G. Ry. Co. v. Lee
| Decision Date | 03 October 1895 |
| Citation | 32 S.W. 249 |
| Parties | EAST TENNESSEE, V. & G. RY. CO. v. LEE et ux. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from circuit court, Hamblen county; W. R. Hicks, Judge.
Action by James Lee and his wife, Mary Lee, against the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railway Company, for personal injuries. Plaintiffs had judgment, and from an order denying a new trial defendant appeals. Reversed.
Shields, Mountcastle & Holloway, for appellant. James G. Rose and Geo. P. Yoe, for appellees.
This action was brought to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been received by Mrs. Mary Lee, then Miss Newman, while disembarking from a passenger train of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railway Company. The plaintiffs, on different trials, have obtained four verdicts, for $4,000, $1,200, $3,500, and $3,000, respectively. The first one was set aside by the trial judge; the second was approved by him, and his action in refusing a new trial was reversed by this court on account of errors in his instruction to the jury (Railway Co. v. Lee, 90 Tenn. 570, 18 S. W. 268); the third was set aside by the trial judge; and the fourth is now before us on appeal in the nature of a writ of error by the railway company.
In disposing of the motion for a new trial in the last instance, the court made an order in the words following: "Came on for argument the rule heretofore entered by defendant to have the verdict rendered by the jury in this case set aside and a new trial of the case granted; and the premises being fully seen and considered by the court, the court not being willing to oust the verdict, since it has tried the case so often, and is so anxious that our supreme court pass upon the evidence in the case and the facts thereof that, after so many trials of the case in this court, the court is of opinion that the rule for a new trial should be discharged, and so orders that the question involved may be passed on by the supreme court." The honorable circuit judge committed error in the action thus taken. It was his duty either to approve or disapprove the verdict, and then, in due course of proceeding, let the aggrieved party bring the case into this court, if desired. It was his province, and his alone, to decide, in the first instance, whether or not judgment should be pronounced upon the verdict rendered by the jury. This court cannot decide the question originally. It has no original jurisdiction. It cannot "pass upon the evidence in ...
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