Isler v. Bland

• Decision Date: 23 February 1889
• Docket Number: 13,514
• Citation: 20 N.E. 303,117 Ind. 457
• Parties: Isler v. Bland
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

20 N.E. 303

117 Ind. 457

Isler v. Bland

No. 13,514

Supreme Court of Indiana

February 23, 1889

From the Miami Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

S. D Carpenter, R. P. Effinger and R. J. Loveland, for appellant.

L Walker, W. B. McClintic and C. R. Pence, for appellee.

OPINION

Mitchell, J.

This was an action by Lottie Bland against Jonathan Isler, to recover the amount of a promissory note executed by the latter as maker to the former as payee.

Answers setting up want of consideration, payment, set-off, and the general denial, were pleaded, and after issue joined there was a trial by jury and a verdict for the plaintiff.

There is no question upon the pleadings in the case. The controversy here relates almost exclusively to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict of the jury. After setting out the substance of the evidence given by the parties respectively, it is conceded that if the cause rested upon the testimony of the parties, the appellant must fail, because, having the burthen of the issue, and both being entitled to equal credit, there is no preponderance. In other words, it is conceded that the plaintiff's testimony, if believed, supports the verdict of the jury, but the erroneous assumption is indulged that this court will examine and weigh the evidence of all the witnesses, with a view of ascertaining upon which side it preponderates. It has often been held that this will not be done, and that where there is evidence in the record which tends to support the verdict, a reversal will not follow, even though the evidence, as a whole, seems to preponderate overwhelmingly against the conclusion of the jury. Hammond &amp Co. v. Schweitzer, 112 Ind. 246, 13 N.E. 869. In such a case, this court acts upon the presumption that there was something in the conduct or appearance of the witnesses, or other circumstances of the trial, which the opportunities of the jury and the judge at nisi prius enabled them to discover, and which could not be conveyed to this court, fully justifying the verdict, even though that was contrary to what might seem to be the weight of the evidence.

Where competent evidence appears in the record which, if true tends to sustain the verdict and judgment, unless it is of such a character as that to believe it would involve an absurd or unreasonable conclusion, no matter how much the evidence is contradicted it will support the verdict...