Stager v. Troy Laundry Co.

• Decision Date: 31 March 1902
• Citation: 41 Or. 141,68 P. 405
• Parties: STAGER v. TROY LAUNDRY CO. [1]
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

68 P. 405

41 Or. 141

STAGER v. TROY LAUNDRY CO. ^[1]

Supreme Court of Oregon

March 31, 1902

Appeal from circuit court, Multnomah county; Alfred F. Sears, Judge.

Action by Barbara Stager against the Troy Laundry Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

J.M Gearin, for appellant.

Henry E. McGinn, for respondent.

WOLVERTON J.

This is an appeal from a second judgment against defendant in this cause, and the principal error relied upon for a reversal is the court's refusal to instruct the jury to return a verdict for the defendant, after both parties had rested. There was a motion for a nonsuit at the close of plaintiff's testimony, which was overruled, and error is also assigned as to that. We will dispose of the two questions thus raised in the inverse order of their statement.

It is practically conceded by counsel for both parties that the evidence adduced at the trial, up to the time of the interposition of the motion for a nonsuit, is, in all material respects, the same as that adduced up to the time of making a like motion at the former trial. We have, therefore the identical question presented on this appeal that was contested and disposed of on the former. Stager v Laundry Co., 38 Or. 480, 63 P. 645, 53 L.R.A. 459. We then concluded, after careful inspection of the evidence that the nonsuit was properly denied by the trial court. That view of the question has become the law of the case, and it is not subject to review on a second appeal. The rule has been long established, and is uniformly adhered to, that an appellate court will not revise or reverse its former decisions made in the same cause, and upon the same state of facts, and this for two reasons: (1) They stand as precedents and authority, as if made in any other case upon a like state of facts, and (2) as adjudications between the same parties. The policy of the law and the practical administration of justice require that there should be an end of litigation, and the rule has grown up to meet this requirement. If parties were permitted to present the same issues in the same case as often as they feel aggrieved by the result, litigation would descend into a contest of perseverance and persistence, rather than of legal rights, and it could not be brought to a determination so long as human ingenuity could prevent it The rule has repeatedly received the sanction of this court ( Powell v. Railroad Co., 14 Or. 22, 12 P. 83; Applegate v. Dowell, 17 Or. 299, 20 P. 429; Trust Co. v. Coulter, 23 Or. 131, 31 P. 280), and disposes of the contention for a nonsuit.

Now as to the motion for a direction to the jury to return a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff having made a case in the first instance sufficient to go to the jury, it will not be taken away from them later, or at the close of the case on a motion to direct a verdict, where the evidence is merely contradictory or conflicting, as the jury are the judges of the weight of the evidence and must declare as to the preponderance thereof; and the question as to whether the evidence is legally sufficient to be submitted to them remains the same as if it was raised by a motion for a nonsuit, either at the close of the plaintiff's testimony or of the case. Like a motion for a nonsuit, or a demurrer to the evidence, it admits everything to be true that the testimony legally tends to prove, ascribing to every statement of fact in evidence absolute credence; so that if there is testimony in the case from which the jury can, by application of intelligent and reasonable deduction, fairly and legitimately infer the fact in issue, the jury are to determine the matter, notwithstanding other evidence may have been adduced in direct conflict therewith. This question is fully discussed, and the authorities touching it examined, in Huber v. Miller (just decided) 68 P. 400, with the result here stated. It is unnecessary, therefore, to examine the matter upon authority at this time.

The pivotal question of fact in the case was whether defendant had been negligent in the...