Wightman v. Butler Cnty.
| Decision Date | 26 October 1891 |
| Citation | 49 N.W. 1041,83 Iowa 691 |
| Parties | WIGHTMAN v. BUTLER COUNTY. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from district court, Floyd county; J. W. RUDDICK, Judge.
Action for personal injuries resulting from the negligence of the defendant county to properly maintain a bridge on one of its highways. There was a verdict for the plaintiff, which the court, on motion of the defendant, set aside, and granted a new trial. From the action of the court granting the new trial the plaintiff appealed.Gibson & Dawson and Ellis & Ellis, for appellant.
P. W. Burr, O. B. Courtright, and F. Lingenfelden, for appellee.
The motion for a new trial was based on assignments that the verdict was contrary to the instructions given; that it was not sustained by the evidence; that the court erred in refusing and admitting evidence, in giving and refusing instructions; and of the misconduct of one of the jurors during the trial. Upon what one or more of these assignments the court based its ruling the record does not inform us. The court merely “sustained said motion, and set aside the verdict of the jury.” We can only disturb the action of the court upon an affirmative showing of its error. Its ruling being general, if there is one ground of the motion as to which error does not affirmatively appear, its action must be sustained, for it may have been on that ground that it sustained the motion. Appellant's counsel, with a view evidently to meet the emergency, have discussed the several grounds of the motion for a new trial in the light of the record, urging that it is manifest therefrom that the court in granting the motion exceeded its discretionary power. A consideration of one of the grounds of the motion will be sufficient for a proper determination of the case here. The affidavit of one E. P. Fox was filed in support of the motion for a new trial, in which it appears that during the progress of the trial, and while the court had adjourned for dinner, he entered a billiard saloon, and the only person there was one of the jurors, whom he then did not know, but supposed him to be the proprietor of the saloon; that he there entered into a discussion with him as to the merits of the case on trial; that after they had “discussed and argued the meritsof the case,” the juror informed him who he was; “that he had made up his mind how he should decide it, and that the lawyers could not change him;” and it further appears that at that time the evidence for the...
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