Shelby Iron Co. v. Bierly
Shelby Iron Co. v. Bierly
Opinion of the Court
Some of the testimony offered by the plaintiff- — -that concerning his wife and children— was well calculated to prejudice the defense; but it was given a veneer of relevancy, and we will not say its admission was error.
The charges requested by defendant were all faulty in some respect. They need not be noticed seriatim.
Reversed and remanded.
Addendum
On Rehearing.
On his application for rehearing appellee refers to Evans v. Alabama-Georgia Syrup Co., 175 Ala. 85, 56 South. 529, and Pratt v. Birmingham Railway, 191 *424 Ala. 638, 68 South. 151, as if there had been an effort in this case to establish the principles of the dissenting opinions in those cases. As for the case first named above, there is no similarity between the original opinion in this case and the dissent in that, except that in both there is a statement of some elementary principles of pleading such as it is necessary to state on occasion in order that the true and full effect of the judgment pronounced may be brought into clear view. The facts alleged in the two cases are wholly different, and in the first named a majority of the court thought a proper application of the principles stated to the facts alleged resulted in a finding that the plea there in question was bad.
As for Pratt v. Birmingham Railway, the most that can be said of that case as supporting the view now insinuated by appellee is that it sets off dictum against dictum, thus leaving the question at issue to be settled upon the reason of the thing and by authorities more in point.
“No judgment will be reversed or set aside * * * unless, in the opinion of the court to which the appeal is taken, or application is made, after an examination of the entire cause, it should appear that the error complained of has probably injuriously affected substantial rights of the parties.”
It must be assumed that the “examination of the entire cause” mentioned in the rule means the entire cause as shown by the record, and not such a case as may he made up by inferences as to what may have appeared, hut is not shown by the record. AAre have many cases, decided both before and after the adoption of rule 45 (61 South. ix 3 ), in which it has been held that there will be no reversal for error in rulings on pleadings when it appears that the i>arty complaining had in other pleadings advantage of the same facts. It is not believed that the cases to which appellee refers in this connection, so far as concerns the questions at issue therein, are out of line with the general current of our cases. Always, in dealing with questions of pleading, the court has considered questions of merit only, questions inherently meritorious or brought into decisive importance by rules of law the court has no right to disregard. That is still the rule of the court. In the case before us appellant was denied the right to present a meritorious defense. It differed in some respects from the defense which was allowed by the trial court; hut to the advantage of those points of difference' defendant was entitled. Appellee, plaintiff, now insists that the pleas in question were substantially the same as the plea allowed, but evidently this view did not prevail in the trial court, and, as we have said, there were circumstantial differences. Appellee further insists that the evidence disclosed the fact that the real defense was covered in the case that went to the jury. • There can be no safe reliance upon this proposition. The court, in ruling upon the pleadings, cannot anticipate the evidence; nor can the admission of evidence be controlled with a view to demonstrating the fact that erroneous rulings have not affected the merits of the cause. The relevancy of evidence is determined by the issues raised in-the pleadings and allowed by the court. It can never be known that there has been a trial on the merits in a case where tbe court’s rulings on tbe pleadings disclosed the fact that meritorious issues have been excluded from the jury. There can he neither any strong appeal to reason nor any great convenience in a rule which would require the parties, in anticipation of an appeal, to bring evidence to prove facts which the one party has alleged in his pleading and the other has confessed by his demurrer. And, besides, regard must be had for the indisputable implication of the statute, section 5370 of the Code, which provides that—
“The party against whom a judgment on demurrer or plea in abatement is rendered may plead over as a matter of right, without waiving his .privilege of assigning such judgment as error in an appellate court, unless he has subsequently had the benefit sought by the demurrer or plea in abatement upon the trial of other equivalent issues.”
The case before us is not one to excite diligence in the search for an antidote to error found, but that should not lead to the abandonment of precedents established in reason. Apart from that general aspect of the case, our judgment is that error was committed and that the record fails to show the absence of injury.
Application denied.
175 Ala. xxi.
Reference
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- Shelby Iron Co. v. Bierly.
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