Keel v. Seaboard Air Line Ry.

• Decision Date: 22 January 1918
• Docket Number: 9870.
• Citation: 95 S.E. 64,108 S.C. 390
• Parties: KEEL ET AL. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

95 S.E. 64

108 S.C. 390

KEEL ET AL. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.

No. 9870.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 22, 1918

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Barnwell County; Frank B Gary, Judge.

Actions by J. C. Keel, as administrator of the estate of J. O Walker, Jr., deceased, and Frank Baker, as administrator of the estate of Davis Baker, deceased, against the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiffs appeal . Affirmed.

Logan & Grace, of Charleston, and Holman & Boulware, of Barnwell, for appellants.

J. E Harley, of Barnwell, and Lyles & Lyles, of Columbia, for respondent.

WATTS J.

The two actions were for damages in the sum of $50,000 each for the alleged negligent and reckless killing of the two intestates by being run into by a train of the defendant at a crossing of the Main street in the town of Estill, S. C., on April 23 1916. The cases were tried together at Barnwell, S. C., before Judge Gary and a jury, and resulted in verdicts for the defendant. A motion for a new trial was made on the minutes of the court, which was refused, and after entry of judgment plaintiffs appeal.

Upon the conclusion of the testimony the jury communicated to the judge its desire not to hear argument, and the judge told all counsel of this communication, asking counsel to retire, confer privately, and advise if both sides agreed to waive argument, stating that the jury should not know the position taken by either side if either side desired to make any argument. Counsel for both sides withdrew, and shortly returned and informed the court, in the absence of the jury, that they could not agree to waive argument. The jury was brought in, and within a few minutes plaintiffs' counsel arose and announced to the court that they had decided not to make any argument. Defendant's counsel also announced that they waived their right to make any argument. This was noted by the stenographer on his minutes as follows: "Counsel announced that they would dispense with argument." Exceptions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 complain of error in the judge's charge to the jury.

The charge of the judge as a whole was free from prejudicial error. He told them that they were the judges of the facts, and that he was prohibited by law from intimating his opinion on the facts. He did not violate the provision of the Constitution by invading the province of the jury by charging on the facts or in any manner intimating his opinion of the evidence or its value. The judge expressed no opinion as to the weight or sufficiency of the evidence, but was careful to submit everything to the jury that they were entitled to for their determination, and there is nothing in exception 1, and it is overruled. Exception 2 is overruled.

He read the statute to the jury, and that was sufficient. He had the right to read the statute to the jury, or, if the language of the statute was embodied in his own language, this was...