122 Minn. 39 | Minn. | 1913
Appeal by tbe defendant from an order denying his motion for a new trial, after verdict for the plaintiff. The latter’s theories of his right to a recovery were, that the parties agreed to exchange labor in the construction of dwellings, the plaintiff undertaking to furnish the labor in the construction of a foundation on the defendant’s property, the defendant to make the excavation and to furnish the material, and in exchange therefor the defendant agreeing to lath and plaster the plaintiff’s house, including the furnishing of material, and also to pay to the plaintiff $75, and that each performed the work as agreed; and, further, that, at the defendant’s instance, the plaintiff performed extra labor on the defendant’s foundation, of the value of $30. The plaintiff also asserted that the defendant fraudulently obtained $175 of his money upon a pretended assignment. The defendant denied all these claims, except that he admitted his agreement to lath and plaster the plaintiff’s house, but contended that the plaintiff agreed to pay him $175 therefor. He claimed, further, that the plaintiff undertook to construct for him a cement foundation for his dwelling in accordance with certain specified particulars for the agreed price of $270; but insisted that the plaintiff failed fully to perform this contract, thus necessitating an expenditure on the defendant’s part exceeding $217. It was also claimed that the defendant paid the plaintiff and to another at his request $64. The court’s charge covered the theories stated, and no errors therein are here urged.
“The object of an objection to the admission of evidence is to enable the trial judge to rule intelligently thereon, and, if it is not sufficiently specific for such purpose, and the objection is overruled, the correctness of the ruling cannot be reviewed in this court.”
We have no inclination to relax this rule, and it is doubtful if the objections here made should ever be held sufficient. No reason exists why counsel, if they deem offered evidence improper, should not state the specific ground of objection, instead of resorting to the elusive, and now well nigh obsolete, formula, “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial,” which has been in times past one of the mainstays of technical error. The objections made saved nothing for review in this case.
There is no merit in the defendant’s claim of off-set based upon the $17 Strom item. It does not appear that the defendant paid it.
Order affirmed.