Lyons v. Hamilton

• Decision Date: 11 June 1886
• Citation: 28 N.W. 429,69 Iowa 47
• Parties: LYONS AND ANOTHER v. HAMILTON AND OTHERS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

69 Iowa 47

28 N.W. 429

LYONS AND ANOTHER

v.HAMILTON AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 11, 1886.

Appeal from Carroll district court.

This is a controversy involving the ownership of a stock of agricultural implements. The plaintiffs claim to be the owners by virtue of a sale of the property made to them by one Eaton. It is conceded that Eaton was the owner of the goods, but the defendant Barbee, who was a creditor of Eaton, claims that the sale and transfer under which plaintiffs assert title to the property was fraudulent as to the creditors of Eaton. Barbee disregarded the sale, and caused the defendant Hamilton, who is sheriff of Carroll county, to levy an attachment upon the property, which was sold by the sheriff to satisfy the claim of Barbee. The plaintiffs seek by this action to recover the value of the goods. There was a trial by jury, and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiffs. Defendants appeal.Cole, McVey & Clark, for appellants.

Geo. W. Paine, for appellees.

ROTHROCK, J.

1. The jury was impaneled and sworn to try the cause on the evening of April 21st, and thereupon the court adjourned until the following morning. On the next morning, April 22d, the plaintiffs filed an amended and substituted petition. The defendants moved for a continuance of the cause until the next term of court. The motion was overruled, but defendants were given until the next day, April 23d, to prepare for trial, and the cause was continued until that day. The court therefore took up another cause for trial by jury, and a jury was impaneled and sworn, and the cause tried on that day. The panel for the trial of that case was made up from nine of the jurors who had been impaneled and sworn in this case, and three others taken from the venire. The trial of that cause occupied that day. On the morning of the next day, April 23d, this cause was called for trial. The defendants moved to set aside the panel of jurors who had been sworn on the twenty-first of April, and to impanel a jury for the trial of the cause. The motion was overruled. Appellants assign this ruling of the court as error. We think the motion should have been sustained. Every proper safeguard should be employed by courts to protect the rights of the parties by keeping the minds of the jury free from bias, and undue influences and impressions, so that when they come to determine the rights of the parties they may do so untrammeled by any improper considerations. The law requires that, if a jury are permitted to separate during the trial, they must be advised by the court that it is the duty of each one of them not to converse with any other of them, or with any person, nor to suffer himself to be addressed by any other person on any subject of the trial, and that during the trial it is the duty of each one of them to avoid, as far as possible, forming any opinion thereon until the cause is finally submitted to them. Code, § 2792.

It is to be presumed that, when the court adjourned on the evening of the twenty-first of April, the jury were properly admonished; and, if the court had entered upon the trial of the cause on the next morning, there would have been no reason for any objection to the jury; or if the court had adjourned from Saturday until Monday, or for any other reasonable time, there would be no good reason why the jury should not proceed to hear and determine the cause. But that is quite another thing from a continuance of the cause and impaneling most of the jury in another action, and trying...