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DeReamer v. The Pacific Express Company et al., Appellants

Supreme Court of Missouri1884-10
84 Mo. 531

Summary

Holding. The judgment for the plaintiff was affirmed. The appellate court held that the defendants forfeited their right to challenge the admission and exclusion of evidence by failing to object and preserve exceptions at trial, and that the trial court properly refused the defendants' proposed instruction because the three instructions actually given correctly stated the law by placing liability on the defendants only if they could prove the plaintiff's negligence.

DeReamer brought separate actions against two defendants for unpaid wages as a messenger and baggageman totaling fifty dollars. The defendants filed a counterclaim for one hundred and one dollars, claiming DeReamer failed to account for express packages entrusted to him. The trial court and the court of common pleas both ruled in DeReamer's favor. On appeal, the defendants challenged the admission and exclusion of evidence and the trial court's refusal to give a specific jury instruction. The appellate court found that the defendants failed to preserve objections to evidence at trial and therefore could not raise those objections on appeal. Regarding the refused instruction, the court determined that the three instructions actually given adequately explained the applicable law, properly requiring the defendants to prove DeReamer's negligence rather than holding him strictly liable for all losses regardless of circumstances.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Preservation of evidentiary objections on appeal
  • Proper allocation of liability for lost packages in carrier/messenger employment
  • Standards for refusing proposed jury instructions

Procedural posture

The defendants appealed from a judgment rendered by the Moberly court of common pleas after a trial de novo, challenging evidentiary rulings and the refusal of a requested jury instruction.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Ewing, C.

This was two suits, one against each of the defendants, the Pacific Express Company, and the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company, which were consolidated by order of the justice and tried asoné case. The accounts were for one month’s services as messenger, twenty-five dollars ; one month’s services as baggageman, twenty-five dollars. The defendant filed an off-set of one hundred and one dollars for express packages put in plaintiff’s hands and never accounted for. There was judgment before the justice for plaintiff; an appeal to the Moberly court of common pleas and, on a trial cle novo, judgment was again had for the plaintiff, from which the defendants appeal to this court. The evidence on the trial in the common pleas court tended to prove plaintiff’s case, and there was evidence on the part of defendant, which made the question of fact one of doubt; but the court sitting as a jury found for the plaintiff.

I. The appellants in the motion for a new trial complained that evidence was admitted against them, and other evidence offered by them and rejected; but the bill of exceptions does not show that they objected and saved their exceptions to any of the evidence heard; and, indeed, the bill of exceptions does not show that any evidence offered by appellants was objected to or excluded. It has been repeatedly held by this court, where objection is not made, and exceptions saved on the trial, the appellant cannot raise an objection in this court. Harrison v. Bartlett, 51 Mo. 170; Margrave v. Ausmuss, 51 Mo. 561; Primm v. Raboteau, 56 Mo. 407.

II. The only other point made in the motion for a new trial is as to the refusal of the fourth instruction asked by the defendant.

This instruction was as follows :

£ £ If the court, sitting as a jury, finds from the evidence that plaintiff was, employed by defendant to take charge of its money packages, and other valuable articles, along the line of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company between Moberly, Missouri, and Ottumwa, Iowa, and deliver the same to proper agents of the express company, and at the time of entering into said employment it was understood and agreed by and between plaintiff and defendant that plaintiff was to be responsible for the value of all articles delivered to him by defendant, until he turned the same over to the proper agents of the express company, and if the court further finds from the evidence that plaintiff received at Moberly, Missouri, a package containing one hundred dollars in money, of the value of one hundred dollars, consigned to Koch, Kirksville, Missouri, and whieh plaintiff was bound by the terms of his employment to deliver to defendant’s agent at Kirksville, Missouri, and the court further finds from the evidence that plaintiff failed to deliver said package to said agent at Kirksville, Missouri, but lost the same, the verdict must ■be for the defendant.”

The defendants asked three other instructions which were given: one to the effect that if the package was lost by unavoidable accident the plaintiff-was not liable ; •one to the effect that the plaintiff was bound to use the utmost care diligence in protecting the package ; and that if the evidence showed any negligence on the part of the plaintiff, he was liable for its contents. We think these instructions placed the law in a proper light before the •court, and that there was no error in refusing the fourth. The fourth instruction made the plaintiff liable for the loss, under all circumstances, no matter what, and was •evidently too broad; the other instruction was as favorable to defendants as they could ask or the law permit.

The judgment is affirmed.

All concur.