59 Iowa 186 | Iowa | 1882
“Gentleman of the jury you will bring in a verdict for the defendant.”
The plaintiff objected to the court instructing the jury orally and insists that the judgment should be reversed for this error.
It is true the statute requires instructions given by the court to the jury to be in writing. But this instruction was really not an instruction by the court to the jury directing, them as to the law of the case. It was no more than a direction to them to return a verdict for the defendant. If this direction was warranted from the evidence, or rather from the want of evidence in the case, the failure to put the order to the jury in writing was error without prejudice. We would surely not be asked to reverse the case and send it back for a new trial, because of an error which did not and could not influence the verdict.
There is further evidence to the effect that the halter with
That he must have had some knowledge of the general propensities of stallions must be conceded, for it appears that he was keeping one of his own in another part of the same barn. Under these facts we think the court correctly directed a verdict to be returned for the defendant. That the two parties were equally in fault is apparent, and the plaintiff had no more right to recover damages than the defendant would have had if his stallion had been injured instead of the plaintiff’s horse. The plain fact is that when these two parties put their animals in their respective stalls, each took upon himself whatever risk there was in so doing.
We think the undisputed facts in this case show, as a matter of law, that plaintiff is not entitled to recover. Artz v. C., R. I. & P. R. R. Co., 34 Iowa, 153; Starry v. D. & S. W. R. R., 51 Id., 419; McLaury v. The City of McGregor, 54 Id., 717.
It is correct as claimed by the plaintiff that the question of negligence does not in all cases become one of law when the facts are undisputed. But if there are no complicating circumstances, and if the undisputed facts are such that a reasonable mind can draw no other conclusion than that -the plaintiff was in fault, it is the province of the court to determine the question as one of law.
Affirmed.