H.D. Williams Cooperage Co. v. Scofield

• Decision Date: 02 November 1903
• Docket Number: 1,881.
• Citation: H.D. Williams Cooperage Co. v. Scofield, 125 F. 916 (8th Cir. 1903)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
• Parties: H. D. WILLIAMS COOPERAGE CO. v. SCOFIELD et al.

125 F. 916

H. D. WILLIAMS COOPERAGE CO. v. SCOFIELD et al.

No. 1,881.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

November 2, 1903

D. W Robert (E. S. Robert, on the brief), for the plaintiff in error.

Richard A. Jones (Nathan Frank and David W. Voyles, on the brief) for defendants in error.

In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Before SANBORN, THAYER, and VAN DEVANTER, Circuit Judges.

THAYER Circuit Judge.

This case was before this court on a former occasion on a writ of error which was sued out by the H. D.

Williams Cooperage Company, the present plaintiff in error. H. D Williams Cooperage Co. v. Scofield et al., 53 C.C.A. 23, 115 F. 119. The former hearing resulted in a judgment of reversal for reasons fully stated in the opinion. The second trial, which was conducted in substantial conformity with the views that were expressed in our previous decision, resulted in a second verdict in favor of Scofield et al., the plaintiffs below, whereupon the H. D. Williams Cooperage Company, the defendant below, sued out another, the present writ of error. The circumstances which gave rise to the controversy are fully stated in our former opinion, to which reference is hereby made, and this fact obviates the necessity of any further statement.

On the present occasion the plaintiff in error complains principally of the refusal of one of four instructions which it requested the trial court to give. An inspection of the record discloses, however, that it did not take an exception on the trial to the refusal of the particular instruction which it now insists should have been given, but that it took an exception in gross to the refusal of the four instructions. This court has held on at least two occasions that an exception taken in gross to the refusal of numerous instructions will not be noticed on appeal if some of the instructions so refused were erroneous or superfluous. The same reasons which have influenced the courts to hold that they will not notice an exception taken in gross to an entire charge or to a long excerpt from a charge embodying several propositions of law, if any of the propositions are sound applies with equal if not greater force when a long list of instructions enunciating different propositions of law are asked and refused, some of which are unsound or superfluous, and an exception is taken in gross to the refusal of all. Hodge v. Chicago & Alton Railway Company, 121 F. 48, 52, 57 C.C.A. 388; Railway Company v. Spencer, 18 C.C.A. 114, 71 F. 93; New England Furniture & Carpet Company v. Catholican Company, 24 C.C.A. 595, 79 F. 294; Price v. Pankhurst, 3 C.C.A. 551, 53 F. 312; Association v. Lyman, 9 C.C.A. 104, 60 F. 498. When counsel, on the trial of a case, merely say, as in the present instance, that they except to the court's action in refusing a series of instructions, they assert in substances that all of the instructions were proper and ought to have been given. The only question, therefore, which such an exception fairly presents on appeal is whether such contention, that all of the instructions asked ought to have been given, is well founded. We are of opinion that counsel should challenge the attention of the trial judge to each separate proposition of law which they see fit to submit, when numerous declarations of law are requested, and that they should obtain a distinct ruling on each proposition, as well as the allowance of an exception with respect to such action as may be taken, provided they intend to take advantage of such action on appeal. The practice that is sometimes pursued, of tendering a long list of instructions to a trial judge, and, after they are refused, saying, 'we except to the court's action,' without pointing out to the trial judge the particular propositions of law that are deemed important, and securing an express ruling thereon, tends to occasion error that might otherwise be avoided, and ought to be discouraged. Some of the instructions which were refused in the present instance were clearly unnecessary, because the substance thereof was embodied in the...