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49 Ill. 143

Powell v. Feeley

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided September 15, 1868

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1868-09-15

Arthur A. Smith, Judge, presiding. Feeley sold Powell two hundred and twenty-seven bushels of wheat, Powell agreeing to pay the highest price paid that day at Oneida, and upon this condition Feeley let Powell have the wheat.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 1979

5 state decisions

20186818701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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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Mr. Justice Walker

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court: It has been so long and so frequently held by this court, that in a suit before a justice of the peace, the pleadings being oral, a party is entitled to recover if he established any cause of action of which the justice of the peace had jurisdiction, and this, too, by whatever name he may call his action, that we deem it unnecessary to discuss the question raised on the first of appellee’s instructions. It could not matter.if he, in his account, did say that appellant was' guilty of fraud in the purchase of the wheat. That did not deprive appellee of proving that appellant owed him for the wheat. To so hold would render trials before justices of the peace highly technical, where the legislature has properly intended to dispense with all technicality. It does not matter by what name a plaintiff in that court designates his action, if he but proves a cause of action falling within the jurisdiction of the justice.

¶2Only a part of the instructions are set out in the abstract, but we have referred to the record, and there find that the same instruction, in slightly a different form, was given, as that which the court refused to give for appellant, and numbered five in the series. A careful examination of all the instructions given, shows that they fairly presented the case to the jury.

¶3It is urged, that the circuit court erred in directing the jury when they retired to consider of their verdict, that when they agreed, they could reduce it to writing, seal it, deposit it with ■ the clerk, and then be discharged from further attendance on the court during the term. It nowhere appears that appellant interposed any objection to this direction of the court. Had appellant objected to it, he should have made it known to the court, and if not allowed, he should have preserved his objection in a bill of exceptions. It was. his right to have the jury polled if he had not waived it. But failing to object to the course pursued by the court, he waived the right, and can not raise it for the first time in this court. A party has no right to stand by and permit steps to be taken in his case without objection, and if the result does not favor Ms interest then raise objections.

¶4An attentive examination of the evidence satisfies us that it sustains the verdict. It is only in cases where the verdict is manifestly against the evidence that tMs court will disturb the finding of a jury. Such is not the case on this record, and the judgment of the court below must be affirmed.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

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