Peltomaa v. Katahdin Pulp & Paper Co.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1906
• Docket Number: 43.
• Citation: 149 F. 282
• Parties: PELTOMAA v. KATAHDIN PULP & PAPER CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

149 F. 282

PELTOMAA v. KATAHDIN PULP & PAPER CO.

No. 43.

United States Circuit Court, D. Maine.

December 3, 1906

William A. Pew and William H. Gulliver, for plaintiff in error.

E. C Ryder and George E. Bird, for defendant in error.

HALE District Judge.

This is an action of tort to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendant's negligence in not using reasonable care in providing a suitable guy rope to support a derrick used in unloading a car of water pipe.

The case now comes before the court on the defendant's motion for a new trial. Upon that motion, learned counsel for the defendant have argued mainly upon the points that the verdict is against the weight of evidence and that the damages $4,208.33 I/3, are excessive.

The plaintiff is a Finn. The witnesses which he has introduced are, for the most part, Finns. A large part of the testimony in the record was taken by means of an interpreter. As counsel have suggested, there was hardly a proposition of fact raised in the whole trial of about a week's time that was uncontradicted. There is seldom a case heard in court where there is so much conflict of testimony. Each side charges that much of the testimony upon the other side is founded upon perjury. The defendant urges that the plaintiff received little or no injury, but has 'put up' his whole case. After a long trial the jury were but 40 minutes in arriving at their verdict. It is not the duty of the court to set aside that verdict, unless it finds that the jury were governed by prejudice, passion, or corrupt motives.

No judicial expression upon the subject of granting a new trial has added much to what Chief Justice Shaw has said in the early case of Cunningham v. Magoun, 18 Pick. (Mass.) 14:

'The great principle which is at the basis of jury trial is never to be lost sight of-- that to all matters of law the court are to answer, to all controverted facts, the jury. The verdict of a jury is practically to be taken for truth.

'Formerly this distinction was effectually preserved by special pleading, whereby juries were compelled to answer 'Yes' or 'No' to a precise fact. * * * But by the prevailing use, in modern practice, of general declarations and general issues, the jury is in most cases left to find a general verdict. * * * The mode of trial, therefore, necessarily is, when the evidence is out, for the court to direct the jury hypothetically, adapting the instructions in point of law to the state of evidence, putting it to the jury to return a verdict for the plaintiff or defendant, as they shall find certain facts proved to their satisfaction or otherwise by the evidence. The consequence obviously is that the jury, in finding a general verdict, do in form return a verdict embracing the matter of law as well as fact; and therefore, as they may mistake the instructions of the court, or may take the law into their own hands, imagining it to be severe or inequitable, they may return a verdict manifestly against the law and truth of the case. To render such a mode of trial safe and tolerable, there must exist a power somewhere to re-examine verdicts with some freedom, and when it is manifest that juries have been warped from the direct line of their duty, by mistake, prejudice, or even by an honest desire to reach the supposed equity, contrary to the law of the case, it will be the duty of the court to set the verdict aside. When, therefore, the evidence is clear, plain, and strong, and the law has been clearly and explicitly stated to the jury, and they decide against the law, it imposes upon the court the duty of interfering, because it must be apparent that the jury have either intentionally erred, by mistaking the terms of their instructions, or misapprehended the weight of the evidence, or that they have mistaken their duty or abused their trust. * * * Where there is evidence for the minds of the jury actually and fairly to weigh and balance, where presumptions are to be raised and inferences drawn, and the jury may be presumed fairly to have exercised their judgment, a court will not feel at liberty to set a verdict aside, although upon the same evidence they would have decided the other way.'

The...