The appellant brought an action of slander against the appellee, the slanderous words consisting of a charge that the appellant had forged certain instruments, and
To this complaint the defendant answered by a general denial, and also by an affirmative answer, in which the plaintiff was charged with having mistreated and abandoned his wife, and thereby lost the respect of his neighbors, closing with a denial of all othеr allegations in the complaint. The plaintiff moved the court to strike out parts of this pleading, and his motion was overruled.
This paragraph was neither in mitigation nor justification of the slander charged in the complaint, and the court should have sustained the motion of the plaintiff, and eliminated the record of a pleading that was an aggravation rather than mitigаtion.of the charge contained in the complaint. It is a part of the duty of nisi prius courts to frown upon and discourage thе filing of nondescript pleadings such as this one, but it does not follow that we should reverse a judgment on account of the failure of the court to sustain such a motion. That we can not reverse on account of the erroneous ruling of a сourt in overruling such motion is well settled; McLean v. Equitable Life, etc., Society,
A motion to compel the defendant to separate this paragraph of answer into two paragraphs was made and overruled. The court did not err in overruling this motion. The pleading was not double, but аttempted to set up a, plea of confession and avoidance of a part of the complaint and а denial of the residue. State, ex rel., v. Newlin,
A demurrer to all of the answer except that portion which contained a denial was filed and overruled. Special demurrers are not provided for in our code of practice. Estep v. Estep,
The sufficiency of the pleading as a whole' was not tested on demurrer, and we are, therefore, not required to pass upon that question.
During the course of the trial a witness was asked if he
The record informs us that the plaintiff objected to the same, for the reason that the question and answer thereto were “ incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial,” and that the court overruled the objection.
This ruling of the court is complained of and relied upon to reverse the judgment rendered against the appellant.
Under the well-established and uniform rule of practice, that objection to the admission of evidence must be reasonably sрecific, and that the objection that the evidence is “ incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant” is not sufficiently specific to present the question of its admissibility for review in this court, we must decline to examine this ruling. Ohio, etc., R. W. Co. v. Walker,
Other evidence of a similar character was admitted during the course of the trial, but, as the objections to its admission were uniformly the same as above quoted, we need not consider them separately.
The defendant, during the course of his examination, denied the spеaking of the slanderous words, and in cross-examination was asked if he did not make similar statements to another witness at anоther time and place. This he also denied. On rebuttal, the plaintiff offered to prove, for the purpose of cоntradiction, that the defendant did make such declaration, but the court excluded the evidence.
This evidence, if offеred as a part of the plaintiff’s original case, would have been admissible to prove malice. Meyer v. Bohljing,
It was, however, not competent in cross-examination to
The answer given by the defendant on cross-examination, in which he denied making the statements to the witness, being immaterial, could not be the foundation of аn impeachment.
Objections are urged to the admission of some other evidence, but we think, on examination, that the оbjections to its admission were not sufficiently specific to authorize us to review the rulings of the court.
The cause for a new trial dependent: upon newly-discovered evidence fails to show any diligence whatever on the part of thе plaintiff to procure the evidence before the trial, is cumulative, and wholly insufficient upon any view of the casе to authorize us to disturb the judgment. See Morrison v. Carey,
“ Gentlemen, no statement made by counsel as to treatment by plaintiff of his wife, nor the statement of counsel as to any fact within his own knowledgе, or what everybody else knows, should be regarded or considered by you at all. You must try this case, so far as the facts are involved, upon the evidence, and not such statement of counsel.”
y This charge was pertinent to the objectionable statements of counsel, and we think that, the court having acted promptly in directing the minds of the jury to the proper rule to be observed by them, we should presume that the harmful re
1 We find no available error in the record for which we should reverse this cause.
Judgment affirmed.