Phillips v. Jamison
| Decision Date | 22 June 1883 |
| Citation | 16 N.W. 318,51 Mich. 153 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | PHILLIPS v. JAMISON. |
Where all that can be claimed is that the same question of fact involved in a suit had arisen in another case in which defendant's principal was a party, and had been passed upon by the jury, the judgment in the former suit is not admissible as evidence in the latter.
Judgments are admissible in evidence only when the same subject-matter again comes in controversy between the same parties.
The instruction given in this case, authorizing the jury to give plaintiff actual damages for the alleged assault and battery if defendant did not exceed his just right in defending the possession of his land, was error, and the judgment should be reversed.
Moore & Moore and John Atkinson, for plaintiff.
Cutcheon Crane & Stellwagen, for defendant and appellant.
Trespass for assault and battery. Defendant denied the assault, and in addition, claimed that whatever was done by him was in defense of his possession. It appears in evidence that plaintiff was owner and occupant of a lot in the village of Wayne, and that defendant, as agent for one Clark, was in possession of an adjoining lot on the north. The section line between sections 29 and 32 was the dividing line between these lots as they were originally laid out. For many years prior to 1871 a fence had stood, as a division fence between these lots, where the section line was supposed to be, but in that year Clark had caused it to be surveyed, and the surveyor had located the line 20 feet further south. Clark thereupon moved the division fence 20 feet, to the line as then located, and there it stood for 11 years, when plaintiff's husband, in the night-time, took it up and restored it to the old location. Discovering in the morning what had been done, defendant attempted to tear the fence down, and the plaintiff, while resisting this attempt, claims to have been assaulted.
On the trial plaintiff claimed exemplary damages, and sought to make it appear that defendant knew the real dividing line was where her husband had placed the fence. For this purpose she offered in evidence the record of a suit and judgment between Clark and one Phillips respecting another lot some distance away, bounded by the same section line, in which suit it was claimed that the true location of the line was in issue and passed upon. This evidence was objected to, but received,...
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Phillips v. Jamison
...51 Mich. 15316 N.W. 318PHILLIPSv.JAMISON.Supreme Court of MichiganFiled June 22, Where all that can be claimed is that the same question of fact involved in a suit had arisen in another case in which defendant's principal was a party, and had been passed upon by the jury, the judgment in th......