Russell v. Marks
Russell v. Marks
Opinion of the Court
M. R. Marks, the defendant in error, recovered judgment in ejectment in the Circuit Court of Orange •county against the plaintiff in error for a certain parcel of land located in that county. By writ of error it is brought here for review. The substance of the--errors assigned are: 1st. The giving of certain instructions by the court to the jury, and the refusal of
In the record brought here there is no bill of exceptions giving us the evidence, or any part thereof, adduced at the trial, upon which the instructions given were predicated, or upon which it was proposed to predicate those requested and refused. Under these circumstances, according to the rule long since established in numerous decisions of this court, we can not consider the assignments Of error based upon the giving, or refusal to give instructions by the court, in the absence of the evidence in the cause upon which it was necessary to foupd those instructions. In the absence of that testimony, the presumptions are that the rulings of the court below- were proper, and we must uphold them, upon that presumption, when there is nothing before us to indicate whether they were erroneous or not. Proctor vs. Hart, 5 Fla., 465; Burk vs. Clark, 8 Fla., 9; McKay vs. Friebele, Ibid, 21; Dibble vs. Truluck, 11 Fla., 135; Parsons & Hoeg vs. Baxter, 13 Fla., 580; Blige vs. State, 20 Fla., 742; Livingston vs. Cooper, 22 Fla., 292. To this rule there is but one exception, and that is where a. charge, excepted to, is patently irrelevant to the issues in the case and is calculated to mislead the jury. Sammis vs. Wightman, 31 Fla., 10; which exception, however, does not obtain in this case.
The contention here, upon the second error assigned, is that the verdict of the jury was defective because it fails to find that ‘ulie defendant ivas guilty.” There is no merit in this contention, or in the error assigned. Our statute — McClellan’s Digest, Sections 4 and 5, p.
Finding no error in the record,, the judgment of the court below is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Joseph G. Russell, in Error v. Mathew R. Marks, in Error
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- 1 case
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- Syllabus
- Appellate PRactice — Verdict in ejectment. 1. On writ of error, where there is no bill of exceptions showing the testimony upon which instructions, given or refused, were ' predicated, the appellate court can not consider assignments of error based upon the giving or refusal of such instructions, except where a charge, given and excepted to, is patently irrelevant to the issues in the case and is calculated to mislead the jury. 2. In ejectment it is not necessary that the verdict should expressly declarethe “defendant to be guilty;” but in such cases the verdict, if for the plaintiff, is sufficient when it finds in express terms that the plaintiff is entitled to the possession of the land in dispute, and describes the land by its numbers, or by its metes and bounds, or by any other sufficiently certain ■description by which it is known and can be identified; and finds the quantity of the plaintiffs estate therein.