Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

27 Ala. 646

Dabbs v. Dabbs

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1855

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1855-06-15

<p>[BILL IN EQUITY BY HEIRS-AT-LAW AGAINST DEYISBES — ISSUES AT LAW TO TEST • VALIDITY OE WILL AND DEED OE GIFT.]</p> <p>1. Order directing issue at lam interlocutory merely. — An order in chancery directing an issue at law is interlocutory merely, and may therefore be set aside at a subsequent term.</p> <p>2. When new trial may he refused. — Although the inheritance is concerned, a new trial of the issue may be refused to the heir, notwithstanding the erroneous rulings of the court trying- the issue, when, on all the evidence in the case, if the verdict of the jury had been against the validity of the will, a new trial should have been awarded.</p> <p>3. Error on trial of immaterial issue vxn-lts no injury. — 'Where issues at law are directed to try the validity of a will and of a deed of gift, which are so connected by words of reference that if the will is valid the deed cannot be held invalid, and the verdict of the jury establishes the validity of the will, the trial'of the other issue is an immaterial matter, and its regularity will not be looted into on error.</p> <p>4-, Costs.' — Where the verdict is in favor of the will, and the court trying the issue erroneously renders judgment for the costs against the heir, besides certifying the costs to the chancellor, by whom also they are decreed against the heir, the error is without injury.</p>

Relies on Roberts's Administrator v. Cocke · Alexander v. Alexander

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently November 1890

3 state decisions

1018551860187018801890decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

GOLDTHWAITE, J.

¶1There was no error in setting aside the order directing the issue at law, as it was interlocutory merely; and decrees or orders of that character are always under the control of the court making them, until the final decree is rendered. — Davis v. Roberts, 1 S. & M. Ch. 543; Roberts v. Cocke, 1 Rand. 121; Commonwealth v. Beaumarchais, 3 Call, 122; Cook v. Bay, 3 How. Miss. 485.

¶2In relation to the refusal of the chancellor to grant a new trial, we see no error. We have carefully examined dll the evidence which the parties agreed to admit on the trial of the issue as to the will, — that which was admitted against the objection of the appellants, and that which was offered on their part and excluded; and we are fully satisfied that, had the first been rejected, and the last received, it should not have altered the result. Indeed, looking to all the evidence, if the verdict had been the other way, we should have regarded it as the duty of the chancellor to have granted a new trial; and under these circumstances, there was no error in overruling the motion, although the inheritance was concerned. — Boothe v. Blundell, 19 Vesey, 494, 503; Alexander v. Alexander, 5 Ala. 517, and cases there cited.

¶3As to the deed,' we agree with the chancellor, that the issue as to it was entirely unnecessary. If the will stood, the deed must stand. If the first was valid, the last could not be held invalid. This being the case, and there being no reason why *649an issue as to the deed should be directed, we will not disturb the verdict which establishes only what was included in the other issue. We will not look into the regularity of a trial in relation to a matter as to which there should have been no trial.

¶4Upon the question of the costs at law, it is only necessary to say, that they were certified to the chancellor, and were properly adjudged by him against the appellants. It may have been erroneous in the Circuit Court to have rendered judgment against them, but as it was proper they should have paid them, and as they were rightly decreed against them by the chancellor, there is no injury in the error.

¶5Decree affirmed, at the cost of the appellants.

/27/ala/646 · .json · Public domain