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25 Mo. 597

Woolfolk v. Tate

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided October 15, 1857

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1857-10-15

I. It is the doctrine of this court that motions for new trials arc always addressed to the discretion of the court in which the trial was had. (16 Mo. 393.) But it is submitted that this court is not in this case called upon to control the discretion of the circuit court as to the weight of testimony. That court expressly declined acting upon the question because the judge then sitting was not the judge before whom the cause was tried. II.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““A party to a suit has the same right to have his motion for a new trial heard and duly considered as he has to institute or defend an action. An acknowledged ground for granting new trials is that a verdict is against the weight of evidence; and if, in this case, the court was embarrassed by the circumstances, and could not pass on the merits of the motion, it ought to have directed a new trial.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including McCord v. Knowlton

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1857-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently July 1930

22 state decisions

80185718601870188018901900191019201930decided

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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Richabdson, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This case was tried in the Marion circuit court, at the July term, 1855, before Judge Wells. The verdict was for the plaintiff, and thereupon the defendant filed his motion for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, and that the court admitted illegal testimony. The motion was not heard by the judge who tried the cause, but was continued until the next term, and in the mean time Marion county, by an act of the general assembly, was included in another circuit, in which Judge Redd presided. At the February term, 1856, the motion was called and overruled for the reason, as assigned by the court, “ that the cause having been tried before Judge Wells, and not having heard the evidence as delivered by the witnesses on the stand, and not having the opportunity which the jury had of deciding upon the credibility of the witnesses, by the manner in which that evidence was given, the court is unwilling to disturb the verdict on the ground that it is against the weight of evidence.” Without expressing any opinion whatever on the evidence or the merits of the motion, we think that, under the circumstances, the court ought to have sustained the motion and ordered a new trial. A party to a suit has the same right to have his motion for a new trial heard and duly considered as he has to institute or defend an action. *599An acknowledged ground for granting new trials is, that a verdict is against the weight of evidence; and if, in this case, the court was embarrassed by the circumstances, and could not pass on the merits of the motion, it ought to have directed a new trial. It is better to allow a new trial, where the court for any cause can not consider the merits of an application for that purpose, than to refuse it; for by denying the motion, without giving a party the benefit of being heard or of having his reasons considered, irreparable injury may be done, while on the other hand the prevailing party in the verdict will only suffer by delay, and generally will secure another verdict if he is entitled to it.

¶3With the concurrence of the other judges, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

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