Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company v. Reid

• Decision Date: 10 June 1907
• Citation: 90 Miss. 616,43 So. 952
• Parties: YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. HENRY F. REID
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

43 So. 952

90 Miss. 616

YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. HENRY F. REID

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 10, 1907

March, 1907

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Coahoma county, HON. SAMUEL C. COOK, Judge.

Reid, the appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the railroad company, the appellant, was defendant there. Upon the trial of the case in the circuit court a judgment was rendered for defendant, predicated of a peremptory instruction; thereafter the circuit court sustained the plaintiff's motion for a new trial and the defendant, under Code 1906, § 4911, appealed from the order granting the new trial to the supreme court.

Appeal dismissed.

Mayes & Longstreet, and C. N. Burch, for appellants.

O. G. Johnston, for appellee.

Code 1906, § 4911, was a vain and useless thing. It in no wise repealed that section of the code providing that an appeal should only lie from a final judgment. As a matter of fact it was an unwarranted interference upon the part of the legislative department of our government with the judicial department. To quote from the language of this court in a former opinion and to paraphrase a little:--

"It shuts out the plaintiff from having complete and final disposition of their rights in a forum provided by the organic law for all."

In characterizing this sec. 4811, I can do so in no more expressive manner than used by the learned chief justice in rendering his concurring opinion in the case of Yazoo, etc., R. R. Co. v. Wallace, ante 609, S.C. 43 So. 469, wherein he uses this language:- -

"I desire to say that § 4911 here involved and § 4910 of the Code are nonsense written therein by legislative blunder."

OPINION

CALHOON, J.

Appellee brought his action in the court below for damages for personal injuries. The court below granted a peremptory instruction for the railroad company. Then the appellee, plaintiff below, moved the court to set aside the verdict and grant him a new trial, which was done, and the railroad company appeals from the order granting a new trial; the appeal being taken under § 4910 of the Code of 1906.

This appeal must be dismissed, because it is not from a final judgment of the court. Code 1906, § 33. See opinion and concurring opinion in Y. & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Wallace, ante, S.C., 43 So. 469.

Appeal dismissed.