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112 Me. 289

Driscoll v. Gatcomb

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided October 29, 1914

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1914-10-29

On motion by defendant reported to Law Court in accordance with Revised Statutes, Chap. 84, Sec. 53. Motion sustained. New trial granted. This is an action of replevin of a calf. The maternity of the calf was an element in determining the question of title.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1914-10-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently December 1994

11 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Bird, J.

¶1In this action of replevin of a calf, a verdict was rendered for the plaintiff and the case is now here upon a motion for new trial reported in accordance with the provisions of R. S., Chap. 84, Sec. 53. It appears from the printed record that the maternity of the calf was an important element in determining the question of title at the trial. The Justice presiding had excluded evidence instituting a comparison between the calf and the cow alleged by plaintiff to be its dam. Subsequently and before verdict rendered, one of the jurors engaged in the trial of the cause w'ent to the house of plaintiff and, denying to the plaintiff that he was connected with the Court in any way, was permitted to examine the calf and the cow so alleged to be its dam. The defendant did not learn of the action of the juror until after the rendition of verdict when he promptly filed his motion for new trial. It is not apparent that the juror in question mentioned his visit to the house of plaintiff to his fellows.

¶2Subject to objection of defendant, the juror was permitted, with grave doubt on the part of the Court, to state that his examination and comparison of calf and alleged dam did not influence his decision in any manner. The objection was well taken. As said in Harrington v. Worcester &c. Railway, 157 Mass., 579, 581, “a juryman may testify to any facts bearing upon the question of the existence of the disturbing influence, but he cannot be permitted to testify how far that influence operated upon his mind.” And in the same case it is remarked that the question of fact in such a case as the present is not whether the mind of the juror was influenced, but whether his act might have influenced his mind, or was of such a nature as to have any tendency to influence it. See also Newell v. Ayer, 32 Maine, 334; Clark v. Lebanon, 63 Maine, 393, 395; Trafton v. Pitts, 73 Maine, 408; Heffron v. Gallupe, 55 Maine, 563, 566; State v. Hascall, 6 N. H., 352, 361, 363.

¶3The question therefore is whether or not the action of the juror might have influenced his mind or was of such a nature as to have any tendency to influence it. It is not a violent presumption that evidence received by jurors or remarks made to them, out of Court, or views without order of Court, more or less, affect jurors: Cilley v. Bulett, 19 N. H., 312, 324; Bradbury v. Cony, 62 Maine, 223, 227. *291Nothing appears in the evidence reported to rebut this presumption. We are unable to conclude that there is no possibility (State v. Hascall, 6 N. H., 352, 363) that the juror was unaffected by his examination and comparison. See Heffron v. Gallupe, 55 Maine, 563, 568; Belcher v. Estes, 99 Maine, 314, 316.

¶4Motion sustained.

¶5New trial granted.

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