Elliott v. E. C. Miller & Co.

• Decision Date: 27 January 1908
• Docket Number: 74.
• Citation: 158 F. 868
• Parties: ELLIOTT v. E. C. MILLER & CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

158 F. 868

ELLIOTT v. E. C. MILLER & CO.

No. 74.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

January 27, 1908

Ruby R Vale and Whiteman & Woolley, for plaintiff.

G. W Hart and E. D. McLoughlin, for defendants.

J. B McPHERSON, District Judge.

The plaintiff's counsel is mistaken in supposing that the verdict is what is well known as a special verdict. Such a finding should place on record all the essential facts of the case, disputed or undisputed, and upon these facts alone the judgment of the court is to be rendered. The established rule in Pennsylvania on this subject is thus stated by Mr. Justice Mestrezat in Sewing Machine Co. v. Insurance Co., 201 Pa., on page 647, 51 Atl., at page 354:

'It is the province of a special verdict to find and place on record all the essential facts in the case. This includes the disputed as well as the undisputed facts. What is not found by the verdict is presumed not to exist, and no inferences as to matters of fact are permitted to supply the facts themselves which the verdict should have found. In entering judgment, the court is confined to the facts found by the special verdict, and unless they are sufficiently found no judgment can be entered. The jury must find the facts, and the court declare the law on the facts so found. Such are the requisites of a special verdict as held in all our cases. In Wallingford v. Dunlap, 14 Pa. 33, it is said: 'It is of the very essence of a special verdict that the jury should find the facts on which the court is to pronounce judgment according to law. And the court will not intend anything, especially any fact not found by the jury. * * * The undisputed facts ought to have been incorporated in the special verdict. * * * The court is confined to the facts found by the special verdict. And when a special verdict is given, the court ought to confine its judgment to that verdict. * * * But this special verdict is so defective and erroneous, and the judgment so anomalous in being entered partly on the verdict and partly on what was called undisputed facts, that we must do what has often been done before, reverse the judgment, and send the case back for a new trial.' Mr. Justice Mercur, delivering the opinion of the court in Vansyckel v. Stewart, 77 Pa. 126, says: 'It (special verdict) must include both disputed and undisputed facts. The court will not infer a fact not found by the jury. It must declare the law on these facts alone. As all the essential facts must be found in the verdict, it follows that it cannot be aided by intendment or by extrinsic facts appearing upon the record.' In Trigg v. Treacy, 104 Pa. 498, Clark, J., speaking for the court, says: 'We cannot resort to the testimony, or to such extrinsic matters as were undisputed at the trial, or avail ourselves of such even as appear upon the record. It is of the very essence of a special verdict that the facts found are those upon which the court is to pronounce judgment according to law. What is not thus found is presumed not to exist, the verdict being conclusively the complete result of the jury's deliberation upon the whole case presented."

To the same effect is Kelchner v. Nanticoke Borough, 209 Pa. 412, 58 A. 851.

In the case now before the court, the jury was not asked to find a special verdict, but simply to answer certain questions, and thus to settle the dispute between the parties concerning the particular facts covered thereby. The method adopted is fully described in Clementson on Special Verdicts, chs. 4 and 5, pp. 44, 57, 68. The verdict is so far from being special that it embraces a general finding in favor of the plaintiff for a definite sum; and, moreover, if the court is now to be confined, as the counsel for the plaintiff apparently insists, to the answers made by the jury to the questions put by the court, no judgment whatever can be entered, because the questions and answers taken by themselves are not intelligible, and, thus taken, do not form a sufficient basis for judgment. This will appear at once by reading at this stage of the discussion the questions and answers that are now part of the verdict:

'(1) Was the certificate pledged by Evans & Co. on November 10 or 11, 1905, in order to protect their general account with Miller & Co.? In other words, was it deposited as collateral security for that purpose? Answer: No.

'(1 1/2) Did Evans & Co. intend to pledge this stock as collateral security for a debt to Miller & Co. existing on November 10th or 11th, or did they intend it to be credited generally to their account? Answer: To be credited generally to their account.

'(2) Was the certificate in question intended to take the place, and did it take the place, of the 30 shares of U.G. Imp. Co. referred to in the letter of November 10th? Answer: Yes.

'(3) On November 10th or 11th, or at any time afterward, before the stock in question was sold, did Evans & Co. direct Miller & Co. to hold this stock, and not to sell it until it should reach either 51 1/2 or 52 1/2? Answer: No.'

It is, I think, perfectly plain that these questions and answers do not constitute, and were never intended to constitute, a special verdict, but were simply intended to resolve certain disputes of fact which the jury was asked by the court to settle specifically by this method. An examination of the charge will show distinctly what was done. Nearly all the facts were undisputed, but some were controverted, and there was a controversy also concerning the propriety of drawing certain inferences of fact. It was these controversies only that were covered by the questions that the jury were asked to answer, and the result of the verdict (taken as a whole) is, therefore, to decide all the disputes of fact, and thus to leave the court to consider the reserved questions of law, upon the facts about which there was no contention at the trial, and also upon the facts that were then in contest, but have now been conclusively found by the jury's answers to the questions put by the court.

The undisputed facts were as follows: The plaintiff, on November 10, 1905, was the owner of 50 shares of preferred stock in the Philadelphia Company, and on that day he delivered the certificate to H. L. Evans & Co., a firm of brokers then doing...