Greenleaf v. Egan
| Decision Date | 19 March 1883 |
| Citation | 15 N.W. 254,30 Minn. 316 |
| Parties | GREENLEAF v EGAN. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from order of district court, county of Ramsey.
Geo. L. & C. E. Otis, for respondent.
O'Brien & Wilson, for appellant.
In this case, prior to the commencement of the trial, the defendant demanded a jury trial of the issues, without specifying any particular issues. That motion made at that time had to be decided upon the pleadings; and the character of the case made by them, and the character of the case subsequently made by the evidence, of course, could not affect the decision upon it.
The allegations in the complaint of conversion of specific items would, if there were nothing else in the case, make it what would formerly have been an action at law and properly triable by a jury. But there are also allegations which make it an action by a principal against an agent, for a discovery and accounting,-and the complaint demands an accounting,-which formerly were matters of equitable cognizance, and now triable by the court without a jury. The case may, therefore, be regarded as one where causes of action triable by a jury and causes of action triable by the court are united. In such case, to secure a jury trial of the issues properly triable by jury, the proper mode is by a demand, not that all the issues in the case, but that the specific issues proper for a jury, shall be so tried. Defendant made no such demand and he cannot be heard now to complain. As his demand was for what he was not entitled to, to-wit, that all the issues be tried by a jury, it was rightly denied.
Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings, and also the motion to dismiss made when plaintiff rested, were properly denied. Those motions appear to have been made on the theory, as to the former, that if the complaint assumes to set forth an equitable cause of action, and some facts essential to such a cause of action be wanting, although a legal cause of action be set forth, the defendant is entitled to judgment; and as to the latter, that if the cause of action set forth in the complaint be equitable, and when plaintiff rests there be some fact wanting in the proofs to make the cause of action equitable, the court ought, on defendant's motion, to dismiss the action, although a legal cause of action may have been proved. The theory is entirely inadmissible. When the facts alleged in the complaint show the plaintiff entitled to relief, whether...
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In re Fulda Independent Co-op., Bankruptcy No. 3-89-4422
...bankruptcy filing, Plaintiffs would have had the right to a jury trial on their conversion and fraud causes of action. Greenleaf v. Egan, 30 Minn. 316, 15 N.W. 254 (1883) (conversion cause of action is action at law, properly triable by jury); St. Paul and Sioux City R.R. Co. v. Gardner, 19......
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Swanson v. Alworth
...are frequent in the books that whether a plaintiff is entitled to a jury trial must be determined upon the complaint. Greenleaf v. Egan, 30 Minn. 316, 15 N. W. 254; Bond v. Welcome, 61 Minn. 43, 63 N. W. 3; Nordeen v. Buck, 79 Minn. 352, 82 N. W. 644; Shipley v. Bolduc, 93 Minn. 414, 101 N.......
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Rognrud v. Zubert, s. 40842
...Brick & Tile Co. v. Sodergren, 130 Minn. 252, 153 N.W. 527; Koeper v. Town of Louisville, 109 Minn. 519, 124 N.W. 218; Greenleaf v. Egan, 30 Minn. 316, 15 N.W. 254. Obviously, if the 'equitable' issues are dispositive of the case, there is no reason to have the jury pass on the 'legal' issu......
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Morton Brick & Tile Company v. Sodergren
... ... equitable issues, the legal issues are triable by a jury and ... the equitable issues by the court. Greenleaf v ... Egan, 30 Minn. 316, 15 N.W. 254. In such cases some ... decisions hold that the party who has injected the equitable ... issues into the ... ...