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57 Utah 44

Metcalf v. Mellen

Utah Supreme Court

Decided September 10, 1920

Utah Supreme Court · decided 1920-09-10

Louis Brown, Judge. Action by James Metcalf, Jr., against J. W. Mellen and another. Judgment for plaintiff against the named defendant, and that defendant appeals.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1920-09-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 1959

8 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

1101920193019401950decided

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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FEICK, J.

¶1I concur. I base my concurrence upon the ground, however, that the complaint states a cause of action in tort based upon the negligence of appellant, J. W. Mellen. The negligence consisted in appellant’s failure to warn the public against using the highway at the point of the accident. The law imposed upon him that duty. The fact that the duty was also imposed by the contract with the state in no way affected the duty imposed by law. In view that it is clear from the record that the accident was caused through the negligence aforesaid, and that the jury must have so found, the introduction in evidence of appellant’s contract with the state could not have resulted in prejudicing his rights.

¶2I am also of the opinion that the court did not err in permitting plaintiff to amend his complaint in increasing the amount of damages claimed. The plaintiff, as assignee, possessed all of the legal rights of the assignors, and it certainly would not have been an abuse of discretion, if the assignors had been permitted to amend their complaints, if they had personally prosecuted the actions.

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