Sardis & Delta Railroad Company v. McCoy

• Decision Date: 16 January 1905
• Citation: 37 So. 706,85 Miss. 391
• Parties: SARDIS & DELTA RAILROAD COMPANY v. WILLIAM J. MCCOY
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

37 So. 706

85 Miss. 391

SARDIS & DELTA RAILROAD COMPANY v. WILLIAM J. MCCOY

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 16, 1905

November 1904

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Panola county, HON. J B. BOOTHE, Judge.

McCoy the appellee, was plaintiff, and the railroad company appellant, defendant in the court below. The suit was for the value of a mule killed by a train on the track of the railroad company. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor the defendant appealed to the supreme court. The instruction passed upon and condemned by the supreme court was as follows: "The court instructs the jury that they are the sole judges of the weight of evidence and the credibility of witnesses, and may give just such weight to the testimony of any witness as, in the light of all other facts and circumstances in the case, they may think it entitled to; and if they believe that any witness has testified falsely in any material point, they may reject the testimony of such witness altogether."

Reversed and remanded.

Shands & Shands, for appellant.

The second instruction given for plaintiff is objectionable and erroneous for two reasons: It charges the jury that "if they believe that any witness has testified falsely, they may reject the testimony of such witness altogether." This leaves out the important qualification of "knowingly" testifying falsely, which is the thing that gives the jury the right to reject such testimony. This must have had an influence upon the jury, for they evidently did reject the testimony of the two witnesses for the defendant, or they could not have found the verdict they did.

The instruction is also objectionable and erroneous, for there was nothing whatever in this record to make the testimony of the two witnesses for the defendant appear improbable or unreasonable, and they are uncontradicted; and it has been expressly decided by this court that in that state of case such an instruction should not have been given. Railway Co. v. Tate, 70 Miss. 348. The giving of this instruction for plaintiff would naturally tend to make the jury believe that the court considered the testimony of such witness questionable, to say the least. We consider the instruction, therefore, misleading and harmful error.

L. F. Rainwater, for appellee.

The facts present a case for the jury, and not for the court. As was said by the court in Mobile, etc., R. Co. v Holt, 62 Miss. 173: "This case...