Houseworth v. Bishop
| Citation | 57 Ind.App. 62,106 N.E. 380 |
| Decision Date | 13 October 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 8415.,8415. |
| Parties | HOUSEWORTH v. BISHOP. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Superior Court, Elkhart County; Vernon W. Van Fleet, Judge.
Action by Earl Bishop against Allen Houseworth. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Ira H. Church, of Elkhart, for appellant. Wm. B. Hile, of Elkhart, for appellee.
Appellee brought this action against appellant in the court of a justice of the peace for an unpaid balance of $66.92 on an account for lumber. The plaintiff recovered, and appellant appealed from the judgment. The case was tried in the Elkhart superior court, and resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee for $62.
The overruling of appellant's motion for a new trial is the only assigned. The motion for a new trial contains several grounds, but the only cause relied on and presented by the briefs is the alleged misconduct of the jury in arriving at the amount of the verdict.
[1] In support of his motion for a new trial, appellant filed his affidavit, in which he alleged in substance that the verdict of the jury was reached by the jurors agreeing in advance to add together the several amounts each juror should fix and divide the total sum by the number of the jurors and return the quotient as the amount of the verdict. He also alleged that he received his information from one Charley Lyons. Appellee filed a counter affidavit of two of the jurors to the effect that neither Charley Lyons nor any other person than the members of the jury were present during any of the deliberations of the jury; that ten of the jurors voted to give the plaintiff the amount of his alleged balance and two voted for a verdict of about $50; that after six or eight ballots had been taken, as above indicated, one of the jurors suggested that they were not far apart and that in his opinion $62 would equalize their differences; that thereafter another member of the jury proposed that they return a verdict for plaintiff for $62, and each juror agreed thereto; that the verdict was arrived at in no other way, and when agreed upon was rendered accordingly.
Appellant's affidavit filed in support of his motion for a new trial does not give the source of his information, further than to state that it was obtained from one Charley Lyons. Nothing is said as to the source of the information obtained by said Lyons, nor was the statement of the alleged way in which the jury arrived at their verdict supported by the affidavit of said Lyons. In Hutchins v. State, 151 Ind. 667, 677, 52 N. E. 403, 406, the court held that an affidavit was insufficient to impeach a verdict which did not give the source of the information relied on for such impeachment, and also...
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