Fohl v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company
| Citation | 87 N.W. 919,84 Minn. 314 |
| Decision Date | 08 November 1901 |
| Docket Number | 12,537 - (26) |
| Parties | MICHAEL FOHL v. CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Petition by Michael Fohl and others to the village council of the village of Sleepy Eye, to open and extend a street over the right of way of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company. The prayer of the petitioners having been denied they appealed to the district court for Brown county. The appeal was heard before Webber, J., and a jury, which rendered a verdict that the order appealed from be reversed and that the street be laid out and opened. From an order denying a motion for a new trial, the railway company appealed to the supreme court. Reversed.
New Trial.
From an examination and consideration of the record and proceedings in this action it is held that the trial court should, in the exercise of its discretion, have granted a new trial on the ground that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict, and it was error to refuse it.
Village of Sleepy Eye.
The village of Sleepy Eye, incorporated by Sp. Laws 1879, c. 36, is, by the terms of its charter, controlled and governed in the matter of laying out and opening streets within the village limits by the general statutes conferring upon town supervisors the power to lay out and open highways, and is authorized to lay out and open such streets to the width of sixty-six feet only, except when petitioned for by all the property owners adjoining th proposed street. adjoining the proposed street.
Brown, Abbott & Somsen, for appellant.
Somerville & Olsen, for respondent.
A petition was duly presented to the common council of the village of Sleepy Eye, signed by the requisite number of freeholders, praying that body to open and extend Fourth street over and across the right of way of the Winona & St. Peter Railway Company as the same extends through the village. The council, after due consideration, denied the prayer of the petition, and the petitioners appealed to the district court, where, after trial before a jury, a verdict was rendered reversing their action, and ordering the proposed street laid out; whereupon the railway company moved the court in the alternative for judgment affirming the action of the village council notwithstanding the verdict, or for a new trial. The trial court granted the motion for judgment, vacated and set aside the verdict, and ordered the entry of judgment affirming the action of the village council. From this order the petitioners appealed to this court, and the order was reversed, but without prejudice to a renewal in the court below of the motion for a new trial. 80 Minn. 67, 82 N.W. 1097. On the cause being remanded, the motion for a new trial was renewed, and subsequently denied, and from the order denying it this appeal was taken.
Several questions are presented and argued by appellant, but, as the result of our consideration of the case is a new trial, only two of them need be considered.
1. It is contended by appellant that the court below, in passing upon the second motion for a new trial, did not exercise the discretion usual on such motions, but instead treated the decision of this court as controlling its action, and denied the motion because the trial judge felt bound to do so by what was said in our former opinion.
We think the record sustains appellant in this contention; at least it appears to us that the learned trial judge was influenced and controlled in denying the motion very largely, if not wholly, by his construction and interpretation of the former opinion. The only question considered by us on the former appeal was whether the evidence was conclusive that the opening of the proposed street across appellant's right of way would essentially impair the use thereof for railroad purposes. We did not intend to be understood as holding that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury within the rule as to granting new trials, but simply that it was not conclusive against it; and hence that a judgment notwithstanding the same was not authorized by Laws 1895, c. 320. Such a judgment can only be granted when the evidence is conclusive against the verdict, or, as expressed in Cruikshank v. St. Paul F. & M. Ins. Co., 75 Minn. 266, 77 N.W. 958, it can only be granted when it is clear that the cause of action or the defense put upon the record does not, in point of substance, constitute a legal cause of action or defense. For the reason that the evidence was not conclusive against the verdict of the jury, the former order was reversed, and the cause remanded without prejudice to the right to renew the motion for a new trial; following Kreatz v. St. Cloud School Dist., 79 Minn. 14, 81 N.W. 533.
The intention of this court was to leave the trial court free to consider and determine such motion as though before it for the first time, and without regard to anything said in our opinion. Had we intended to intimate that a new trial should not be granted on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, language would have been employed to that end which could not have been misunderstood. We did not have that question in mind at all at the time of writing the former opinion, but had in mind solely the question whether the case presented by the evidence was one in which final judgment could properly be entered under chapter 320, supra, as interpreted by the Cruikshank case. That the learned trial judge was controlled by what was there said appears quite evident from his order. He says, "I think the above-named decision of the supreme court will have great, if not controlling, weight in determining the motion," -- referring to the question...
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