Munson v. Atwood

• Decision Date: 27 July 1928
• Citation: 142 A. 737,108 Conn. 285
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: MUNSON v. ATWOOD.

142 A. 737

108 Conn. 285

MUNSON v. ATWOOD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 27, 1928

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County.

Action by William D. Munson against Warren S. Atwood to recover balance of purchase price of six cows. Verdict for plaintiff was rendered in court of common pleas after appeal from justice court, and, from the granting of defendant's motion to set aside the verdict, plaintiff appeals. No error.

Morris L. Robin and Benjamin Robin, both of Waterbury, for appellant.

John E. Whalen and Michael V. Blansfield, both of Waterbury, for appellee.

Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HINMAN BANKS, and YEOMANS, JJ.

WHEELER, C.J.

This case is an appeal to the court of common pleas at Waterbury from the judgment of a justice of the peace to recover the balance of the purchase price of six cows sold by the plaintiff to the defendant; the amount involved being less than $100. The case was put to the jury, and occupied in its trial one day and the larger part of another. The verdict was for $92.25. To try this case cost the state probably at least $400. The interest of the state in the waste involved, the large amount of time taken in the trial to the jury, and the liability to congestion in jury business in our larger counties makes it necessary, from a practical standpoint that cases of this character should be tried to the court rather than the jury. Counsel should use their utmost endeavor to prevail upon clients to have their appeals from justices of the peace tried to the court rather than to the jury.

The defendant moved to set the verdict aside because it was against the evidence, and because the court inadvertently placed too great a burden upon the defendant. The court set aside the verdict upon the ground that, " although in the instant action the court charged the jury to disregard improper remarks and comments of counsel for the plaintiff and of counsel for the defendant, made during the argument on the case, I now feel that the same were too prejudicial to have permitted a fair trial of the matters in issue." The ground upon which the court set aside this verdict was not one of the grounds upon which the defendant's motion was predicated. Neither of the counsel claim, or could claim successfully, that the ground for setting aside a verdict because it was against the evidence included within it the claimed prejudice because of improper remarks and comments of counsel. The appellant puts his appeal upon the claim that the court had no right to set the verdict aside for any other reason than those specified in the motion and that the setting aside of the verdict was an unreasonable exercise of its discretion. The appellee's position is that the court acted within its legal discretion in setting aside the verdict, and that, so long as the record does not disclose what language was used by counsel, the court has nothing before it " which enables it to say that the trial court abused the legal discretion with which it was invested."

Counsel for the appellant misconceives the extent of power vested in the court to set aside a verdict. It is not limited in its action to the ground or grounds stated in the motion. It has the inherent power to set aside a verdict, where it finds it has made in its instructions, rulings on evidence, or otherwise in the course of the trial a palpable error which was harmful to the proper disposition of the case and probably brought about a different result in the verdict. Such power is indispensable to the proper administration of justice; otherwise the court would be powerless to undo the wrong it had unintentionally done in the course of the trial, although it had become aware of the error it had made in time to right the wrong. We decided in Brown v. New Haven Taxicab Co., 92 Conn. 252, 255, 102 A. 573, that the courts have this power. 20 R. C. L. 300. It should be remembered that the exercise of this discretion should be a wise discretion, to be sparingly exercised and only in instances when the error falls within the class we have described. In reaching its conclusion, the court should take into consideration the imminent factors--the large expense the setting aside of the verdict will probably entail upon the litigant who prevailed on the verdict in protecting his rights on appeal, and the expense it will impose upon the state in the printing and making up of the record and in the disposition of the appeal.

The ground for setting aside the verdict in this motion, that it placed too great a burden upon the defendant can mean but one thing, that this burden was imposed either as a result of the rulings on evidence, or otherwise, in the course of the trial, or of the instructions to the jury. We do not understand counsel for the appellant persist in this claim. Let us examine this record with a view to ascertaining whether under...