Martin v. Seabd. Air Line Ry
| Decision Date | 29 September 1904 |
| Citation | 48 S.E. 616,70 S.C. 8 |
| Parties | MARTIN v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
TRIAL—EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE—INSTRUCTIONS.
1. Where irrelevant allegations are allowed to remain in a pleading, a party has no right to a ruling excluding the evidence, though the court has the power to exclude it.
¶ 1. See Pleading, vol. 39, Cent. Dig. §§ 1433, 1434.
2. In the absence of request, failure to instruct the jury not to consider evidence admitted on irrelevant allegations in the pleading is not error.
3. Plaintiff moved a brickmill to a new location on the agreement of defendant to build a spur track to such location. On failure of the defendant so to do, plaintiff treated the contract as abandoned, and moved his mill back to the old location, and sued for damages. Held, that the measure of damages was not simply the cost of hauling the product of plaintiff's mill after its return to its old location to the station on defendant's line, but defendant was also liable for the rental value of the mill during the time it was idle pending the removal to the new location and the subsequent return to the original location, and the actual expenses and losses incident thereto, together with the cost of transporting the product of the mill to the nearest railroad station.
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Lexington County; F. B. Gary, Special Judge.
Action by Thomas L. Martin against the Seaboard Air Line Railway. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Lyles & McMahan and Efird & Dreher, for appellant.
G. T. Graham and A. D. Martin, for respondent
This is an action to recover damages for breach of contract. The plaintiff was the owner of a brickmill at Arthur's Lake, in Lexington county, about one mile from Dixiana, a station on defendant's railroad. Wishing to move his mill to the railroad, in order to save the expense of hauling brick, plaintiff contracted with the defendant railway company for a spur track at a point on the railroad about three-fourths of a mile from Dixiana. The contract provided, as a condition precedent to the construction of the spur, that plaintiff should furnish the switch ties, grade the roadbed, and pay $60 in cash. On the faith of the contract, the plaintiff moved his plant to the new location, at considerable expense. The spur was not built, and, after waiting some time, plaintiff moved his mill back to Arthur's Lake, and sued for damages. The defendant admitted the $60 had been paid and not returned, but attempted to justify its failure to build the spur track by proving that plaintiff had not furnished cross-ties suitable for the work, or made an adequate roadbed.
The complaint sets up these items of damage:
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|Expense of moving brick plant from |$550 |
| |00 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
|Cross-ties, grading, and $60 cash, as |100 00|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
|Loss on kiln of brick for lack of spur track—difference between $250, |152 50|
|value on railroad, and $97.50, | |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
|Rental value of plant while idle for six weeks, based on anticipated |2, 400|
| |00 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
|Total |$3,202|
| |50 |
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It may be that the allegations as to one or two of these items would have been stricken out of the complaint if a motion to that end had been made. But as no such motion was made, the defendant's first exception, charging reversible error in the admission of testimony concerning them, cannot be sustained. Ragsdale v. Railway Co., 60 S. C. 381.
38 S. E. 609; Dent v. R. R., 61 S. C. 329,
39 S. E. 527. The Code of Procedure provides opportunity for the parties to a suit to have the real issues presented in distinct and clear-cut form by a motion to strike out irrelevant matter. If they choose not to use this means, complaint that the circuit judge failed, in the hearing of the testimony, to disentangle the confusion of relevant and irrelevant matter, will not be heeded. Justice does not, in such circumstances, require that litigation should be prolonged by new trials. On the other hand, due administration of the law and dispatch of public business are promoted by encouraging the use of the proper means to eliminate all irrelevant matter before the trial begins. It is upon these reasons that the cases above cited rest. It may be important to remark in this connection, however, that, while a party cannot complain of the admission of testimony as to irrelevant allegations he has allowed to remain in the complaint, this court has never held that the circuit court has not the right to exclude such testimony. In all the cases on the subject, the refusal to grant a new trial was placed on the ground that the appellant, having failed to move to strike out irrelevant allegations, had no right to have the testimony as to such allegations excluded. The proposition that a court is obliged to receive evidence which does not tend to establish any fact from which, under the pleadings, a legal conclusion would result, merely because the immediate litigants are not in a position to complain, cannot for a moment be entertained. The court is vested with power to exclude such evidence, in the interests of other litigants and of the public. Those who have a cause on trial are entitled to time and opportunity to present the evidence and argu-ments which bear upon the real issue, but, when either party attempts to go beyond this, it is within the power of the trial judge, and a duty he owes to others having business in the court, and to the public, either upon the objections of the other party, or of his own motion, to require adherence to the true controversy. The failure of the circuit judge to instruct the jury not to consider the objectionable items of damage cannot avail the defendant, because no specific request upon the subject was submitted and refused. The first exception is overruled.
At the close of plaintiff's testimony, the defendant requested the court to instruct the jury to find a verdict for the plaintiff for $16 only—the cost of hauling to Dixiana all the...
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