McCoy v. The Kokomo Railway And Light Co.

• Decision Date: 27 May 1902
• Docket Number: 19,857
• Citation: 64 N.E. 92,158 Ind. 662
• Parties: McCoy v. The Kokomo Railway and Light Company
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

64 N.E. 92

158 Ind. 662

McCoy v. The Kokomo Railway and Light Company

No. 19,857

Supreme Court of Indiana

May 27, 1902

From Howard Superior Court; H. Brownlee, Judge.

Action by Thomas O. McCoy against the Kokomo Railway and Light Company. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Transferred from Appellate Court, under § 1337u Burns 1901.

Reversed.

J. C Blacklidge, C. C. Shirley and C. Wolf, for appellant.

L. J Kirkpatrick and J. F. Morrison, for appellee.

OPINION

Gillett, J.

The appellant by his complaint charged the appellee with negligently causing its street-car to collide with a buggy in which he was driving, thereby injuring him. On an issue formed by the filing of a general denial to the complaint the cause was submitted to a jury for trial. The jury returned a verdict for appellant, and also made answer to fifty-nine interrogatories that the court, on the motion of appellee caused to be submitted to such jury. The court sustained a motion of appellee for judgment in its favor on the answers to interrogatories, and rendered judgment accordingly. The appellant, in the manner required by law, has presented the question as to the propriety of the above rulings for our determination. It is contended by appellee's counsel, in support of the action of the trial court, that the answers to interrogatories affirmatively show that appellant was guilty of contributory negligence, and that it is also thereby shown that appellee was not guilty of negligence as charged.

In passing on a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, it should be borne in mind that the verdict necessarily covers the whole issue, and that it solves every material fact against the party against whom it is rendered. To enable the latter successfully to interpose the special findings of the jury upon particular questions of fact, as a reason for judgment in his favor, he must, at least, have special findings that stand in such clear antagonism to the general verdict that the two can not coexist. Amidon v. Gaff, 24 Ind. 128; Ridgeway v. Dearinger, 42 Ind. 157; McCallister v. Mount, 73 Ind. 559; Cook v. Howe, 77 Ind. 442; Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. v. Martin, 82 Ind. 476; Baldwin v. Shuter, 82 Ind. 560; Pennsylvania Co. v. Smith, 98 Ind. 42; Indianapolis, etc., R. Co. v. Lewis, 119 Ind. 218, 21 N.E. 660; Graham v. Payne, 122 Ind. 403, 24 N.E. 216; Ohio, etc., R. Co. v. Trowbridge, 126 Ind. 391, 26 N.E. 64; Keeley Brewing Co. v. Parnin, 13 Ind.App. 588, 41 N.E. 471. In some of the cases cited it was declared that the motion can not be sustained unless the special answers constitute an insurmountable barrier to a recovery by the opposite party, while in other of said cases it was said that the answers will not control the verdict, if the verdict and the answers can be reconciled on the basis of any reasonable hypothesis. The court ought not to assume an attitude of unreason in ruling on such a motion, because that would be to abridge the operation of the interrogatory statute. To the end, however, that, unless clearly entitled to it, a party may not obtain a judgment to whom the jury evidently did not intend that a judgment should be awarded, and, because of the presumption against the jury having been inconsistent in its findings, it is required that every reasonable intendment shall be indulged in favor of the general verdict, and that, on the other hand, the court shall strictly, and without favorable intendment, construe the answers to interrogatories against the moving party. Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. v. Martin, supra; Grand Rapids, etc., R. Co. v. McAnnally, 98 Ind. 412; Keeley Brewing Co. v. Parnin, supra, and cases there cited. It is not permitted that the court, in ruling on a motion for judgment based on the answers to interrogatories, should regard the evidence that was introduced upon the trial. Higgins v. Kendall, 73 Ind. 522; Stevens v. City of Logansport, 76 Ind. 498 ; Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. v. Martin, supra; Pennsylvania Co. v. Smith, supra; Cox v. Ratcliffe, 105 Ind. 374, 5 N.E. 5; British-American, etc., Co. v. Wilson, 132 Ind. 278, 31 N.E. 938. The motion should be refused where the antagonism between the verdict and the answers to interrogatories is not such, on the face of the record, as to be beyond the possibility of being removed by any evidence legitimately admissible under the issues. Indianapolis, etc., R. Co. v. Lewis, supra; Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Creek, 130 Ind. 139, 14 L. R. A. 733, 29 N.E. 481; Shoner v. Pennsylvania Co., 130 Ind. 170, 28 N.E. 616; Shuck v. State, ex rel., 136 Ind. 63, 71, 35 N.E. 993. If the answers to interrogatories are inconsistent as between each other, they operate to cancel or neutralize each other, and do not impair the general verdict. Grand Rapids, etc., R. Co. v. McAnnally, supra; Redelsheimer v. Miller, 107 Ind. 485, 8 N.E. 447; Rice v. Manford, 110 Ind. 596, 11 N.E. 283; Shuck v. State, ex rel., supra. As the motion that was made was for judgment upon the answers notwithstanding the verdict, it was required, in order to justify the sustaining of the motion, that the answers, in and of themselves, should be sufficient, when strictly construed, to warrant, in view of the issues, a judgment in favor of the moving party. Bellefontaine R. Co. v. Hunter, 33 Ind. 335, 5 Am. Rep. 201; Campbell v. Dutch, 36 Ind. 504; Rice v. City of Evansville, 108 Ind. 7, 58 Am. Rep. 22, 9 N.E. 139; Shuck v. State, ex rel., supra.

It would needlessly prolong this opinion to exhibit the interrogatories and their respective answers. They are silent upon the question as to how fast the car was running. They show that the collision occurred in the nighttime, at the intersection of Washington and Jefferson streets in the city of Kokomo; that the appellant was crossing appellee's track, that was situate on Washington street, in proceeding east, along Jefferson street, in a carriage, when a street-car of appellee, approaching from the south, collided with his conveyance; that he was familiar with the fact that cars frequently ran on said track; that, as he was aware, his horse was afraid of street-cars; that the view to the south on Washington street, as a traveler approached it on Jefferson street from the west, was obstructed by a building abutting upon the southwest corner of the street intersection; that at the west line of said intersection there was a view to the south of fifty feet; that there was an arc light that was burning almost over the place where the collision occurred; that the car had an electric headlight...