Seccomb v. Provincial Insurance
Seccomb v. Provincial Insurance
Opinion of the Court
The exceptions taken by the defendants at the first trial of this case were waived and abandoned by their acceptance of the new trial, which was granted on their motion. This is the necessary result of the order of the court setting aside the verdict. The exceptions to the rulings on which the verdict was founded fell with it. In truth, exceptions are in effect nothing more than a motion for a new trial on the ground of error in law, the only difference between the two being that the latter is addressed to the discretion of the court before which the case was tried, while the former lie as a matter of right to the court for the correction of errors. But, in either case, only one of two results can be obtained. The court must either set aside or affirm the verdict. If the defendants should now be permit ted to go on and prosecute their exceptions taken at the first trial, they would gain no practical advantage thereby. If successful in maintaining them, this court could pass no effectual order and render no judgment in reversing the rulings. The verdict having been set aside, there is nothing left on which an order sustaining the exceptions can operate. Nor is this all
Upon examining them, it appears to us that injustice was done to the defendants in the course which the trial was allowed to take. By the order for a new trial, under which the previous verdict was set aside and the defendants elected to try the case anew, we think the issue was limited to the question whether, as a matter of fact, Smyrna could be regarded, in a commercial sense, as a port in Europe. The phraseology of the order is somewhat ambiguous; but, on reference to the facts in proof before us as to the course of the former trial, and the questions which were then submitted to the jury, we are satisfied that this is the true interpretation of the language used by the court in setting aside the former verdict. This, then, was the sole question which the defendants could properly ask in the first instance to have submitted to the jury on the second trial. The plaintiffs had a right to hold them to the strict condition on which the new trial was granted, and to insist that no other issue should be opened. But they could not do this, and at the same time put their own case on a different issue. If they did so, they abandoned the condition on which the new trial was granted, and which was annexed to the order for their benefit. The position of the case, then, was this: The plaintiffs had a right to confine the defendants to the single question whether Smyrna, in a commercial sense and by commercial usage, was a port in Europe. No other issue could be tried, if the plaintiffs saw fit to limit the inquiry according to the condition annexed to the order for a new trial. They, however, were not bound by this condition. They were at liberty to support their claim under
On this ground, without deciding on other questions raised by the exceptions, and which may become immaterial on another trial, we are of opinion that the case should now stand for a hearing before a jury on all the issues properly raised by the pleadings. Verdict set aside.
Merrick and Hoar, JJ. did not sit in this case.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Edward R. Seccomb & another v. Provincial Insurance Company
- Status
- Published