155 Iowa 562 | Iowa | 1912
Lead Opinion
Plaintiff claims that defendants by fraud and duress and threats of imprisonment induced her to pay them the sum of $92, which amount she seeks to recover in this action. Defendants interposed a general denial, and also pleaded that the amount paid them was by way of settlement of a debt justly due them from plaintiff. Some time after suit was commenced one of defendants, to wit, Elias James, filed a counterclaim against the plaintiff for maliciously prosecuting him for the crime ■ of maliciously threatening to accuse plaintiff of a crime. It is alleged that the prosecution ended with an acquittal of said defendant on September 26, 1910, which was something like two months after plaintiff commenced this action. Plaintiff moved to strike this counterclaim, and her motion was sustained. Upon the issues joined, the cause was tried to a jury, resulting in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff in the sum of $100.21. Defendants appeal.
II. The verdict has such support in the testimony that we are not justified in interfering therewith.
III. . The jury went out on November 15, 1910, and, failing to agree, they were called into court about 9 o’clock a. m. on the 16th, and the following occurred as shown by the record:
Count: Gentlemen of the jury, you have been out now about fifteen hours, and I will be glad if the court can help you. What is the trouble?
Foreman: Your Honor, we have not been able to agree. We have considered the evidence in every possible way that we can, and there seems to be a difference of opinion.
Court: Is there any trouble, Mn Foreman, with reference to the instructions? A. I can’t see any.
Court: I would like to know how you stand. Just a moment. I don’t want to know how many on one side or how many on the other — that is, I just want the figures, whether six to six; four to eight; seven to five. Give me the numbers without telling me on which side each number is.
Foreman: Eight to four. Q. How long have you been that wray ? A. Since the first ballot.
Court: You will understand that the court has no right to express an opinion at all. If I did, it would be reversible error, and the Supreme Court would reverse the case, because, that is a question fox’1 the jury. The court has no right to instruct the jury except in writing. The coux't has prepared an additional instruction, which I will read to you:
Additional Instruction. You have now been out about fifteen hours deliberating on a verdict without being able to agree. Of course, .the main thing in the trial of this lawsuit, as in any other, is to arrive at the right thing and to do justice between the parties; but, I want to put this matter up to yoix plainly, and ask you to go over some figures with me to show you the importance of your agree
In ruling on a motion for a new trial, which had for one of its assignments the giving of this additional instruction, the court made the following record upon defendants’ request to examine some of the jurors to show that they were coerced into an agreement:
The court declines to hear the testimony for the reason that it is the court’s idea that it is a matter which inheres in the verdict, and the jurors could not be permitted to say now that they did not follow the instructions of the court. The fact is that the amount in controversy is small; that Montezuma is an out of the way place, that is, a place hard to get to, and, there being a large number of witnesses and jurors in attendance, the court was anxious to get a verdict in this case, and, there being no complicated questions of either law or fact, it seemed to the court that the jury should agree one way or the other without any trouble. The jury retired for deliberation Tuesday, November 15th, 'about 5 :45 p. m., and were out .all night, and on the morning of the 16th, about 9 o’clock, the court called them into court and gave them the first additional instruction, that being the long instruction, where the court urged them to get together, if they could. After the jury had retired again, after one additional instruction was read, the bailiff came to the court and said the jury wanted a dictionary, which the court declined to authorize. They then sent to the court, by the bailiff, the note attached to the second additional instruction, asking for a more specific definition of duress. The court prepared an additional instruction, which, by agreement of both parties, was sent to the jury by the bailiff, without the jury being called into court. This was about 11 o’clock on the morning of the 16th of November. A few minutes before 12:00 o’clock, on the 16th, the court told the bailiff to bring the jury into court, and was about to discharge them as we were then just impaneling another jury in the next case, and there were not enough other jurors to impanel the jury. The jury sent word to the court that, if the court
The second additional instruction referred to in these last quoted remarks in response to the jury’s request for a more explicit definition of the word “duress” reads as follows: “In response to your written communication you are further instructed that definitions of ‘duress’ are, ‘hardship’; ‘constraint’; ‘pressure.’ Legally it is a state of compulsion or necessity in which a person is influenced by threats, menaces, and the like to do an act which is not the free will of such person, but whose will is overcome thereby. Read this instruction in connection with the other instructions given you.”
This whole matter is ruled by State v. Richardson, 137 Iowa, 591, wherein we said:
The, jurors retired for deliberation May, 10, 1907, at 4:15 o’clock p. m. On the following morning at 9:10 o’clock a. m., they were called into court, and at their request some evidence read to them by the official stenographer. The court then sua sponte gave them an instruction to the effect that the law required a unanimous verdict, that, while this verdict must be the conclusion of each juror and not a mere acquiescence in that of other jurors to reach an agreement, it was necessary for ‘all the jurors to examine the issue submitted to them with candor and a proper regard and deference to the opinion of each other. A proper regard for the judgment of other men will greatly aid us in performing our own;’ that the case must be decided some time; that the jurors had been selected in the same manner -any future jury would be, and there was no reason to think a jury better qualified would ever be chosen or more or clearer evidence ever be adduced1; that ‘every juror should listen to the arguments of other jurors with a disposition to be convinced by them, and, if any of the jury differ in their views of the evidence from a larger number of their fellow jurors, such difference of opinion should induce the minority to doubt the correctness of their own judgments, and cause them to scrutinize the evidence more closely and to re-examine the grounds of their opinion. Tour duty is to decide the issues of fact which have been submitted to you, if you can conscientiously do so. And in conferring together you should bear in mind that the jury room is no place for pride of opinion, nor for espousing and maintaining a spirit of controversy on either side of a cause.’ This instruction is substantially like that approved in Commonwealth v. Tuey, 8 Cush. (Mass.) 1, State v. Smith, 49 Conn. 376, 386, and Allen v. U. S., 164 U. S., 492 (17 Sup. Ct. 154, 41 L. Ed. 528). To these may be added as tending to sustain it Niles v. Sprague, 13 Iowa, 198, approving of an instruction that it was important that the jury agree. Frandsen v. Railway Co., 36 Iowa, 372, that there should be a reasonable prospect
This case was followed in Burton v. Neill, supra, opinion by McClain, J., and in State v. McGhuey, 153 Iowa, 308, opinion by Sherwin, J.
As already indicated, the instruction complained of did not of itself hasten the verdict. It did not come until the additional instruction was given, and the record shows that the court was about to discharge the jury when the foreman sent word that, if they were given a little more time, he thought they could agree. After waiting an hour and a half, they did agree and came in with the verdict. The authorities cited sustain each and every remark made by the trial court. We do not overlook the fact that some courts have condemned such an instruction. Goodsell v. Seeley, 46 Mich, 623 (10 N. W. 44, 41 Am. Rep. 183); Cranston v. Railroad, 103 N. Y. 614 (8 N. E. 500); Miller v. Miller, 187 Pa. 572 (41 Atl. 277); Sargent v. Lawrence, 16 Tex. Civ. App. 540 (40 S. W. 1075). But
Finding no prejudicial error, the judgment must be, and it is, affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I dissent from the approval of the additional instruction given the jury. Each party to a jury trial is entitled as a matter of fundamental right to have each issue of fact determined by a unanimous verdict which has the intelligent independent assent of each member of the panel. The instruction by inference, if not by express words, is calculated to impress jurors with the idea that each is in duty bound to yield his private judgment to the voice of the greater number, and thus to establish the rule of majority-verdicts. The precedents cited in the majority opinion are nearly all cases in which the trial courts have approached dangerously near the exclusive province of the jury, but exceptions thereto have been overruled, not as much in approval of the instructions, as because of the fact that, under the peculiar circumstances of the individual cases, no prejudice to the appealing party could be presumed. The chief trouble with the majority opinion is in the fact that it' collects all these inconclusive decisions and marshals them in a manner to .invite trial courts to still further incursion into a field which by statute and by the common law from time immemorial has been held to belong to the jury alone. On this ground I woidd reverse the judgment appealed from.