Farrant v. Bates

Decision Date20 December 1887
Citation11 A. 693,60 Vt. 37
PartiesJANE FARRANT v. F.C. BATES
CourtVermont Supreme Court

GENERAL TERM, OCTOBER, 1887

TRESPASS quare clausum fregit. Trial by jury, February Term 1886, Orleans County, Ross, J., presiding. Judgment on a special verdict for the plaintiff. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

T. Grout, J. C. Burke and C. A. Prouty, for the defendant.

OPINION
TAFT

The only exception taken upon the trial below was to the rendition of judgment upon the special verdict. There was no general verdict. No exception having been taken to the action of the court in ruling upon any question which arose prior to or at the time the special verdict was returned, there is no question in this court for revision, save the one taken to the rendition of the judgment; and there was no error therein, if the facts established by the special findings are sufficient to support the judgment rendered. The special verdict, as we construe the answers, established the facts, that the plaintiff owned, and was in possession of, a strip of land uncovered by water, between the old fence and low-water mark, over which the defendant rolled his logs, and in so doing became a trespasser. Such facts were sufficient to support the judgment. The many questions discussed by counsel at the hearing, are not properly before us, no exception having been taken to the action of the court in passing upon them. It is claimed by counsel that if the court below "omitted to submit any question which ought to have been submitted, or to give any instructions which ought to have been given," a new trial should be granted, and cite the case of Goodenough v. Huff, 53 Vt. 482. To entitle the party to the benefit of such questions they should have been reserved in the court below; and an exception to the rendition of the judgment upon the verdict does not reach back to questions arising during the trial. The judgment should stand, if facts sufficient to base a judgment upon, were established by the answers to the questions which were submitted; and Goodenough v. Huff, supra, is not in conflict with this view of the question. In that case the plaintiff sought to recover the amount of a promissory note; one question was whether there was a consideration for the giving of it; the issue was made by the pleadings and the evidence. The court did not submit that question to the jury, only submitting the ones when the note was signed, as that...

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