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72 So. 2d 391

Daniel v. Rogers

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided May 7, 1954

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1954-05-07

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1954-05-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1992

8 state decisions

4019541960197019801990decided

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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MILLEDGE, Associate Justice.

¶1This appeal-is: from a "judgment based on a jury verdict of $35,000 for damages sustained in an automobile ‘ collision. The credibility of- witnesses and the weight of the evidence- are jury ‘[questions. The evidence is ample to support the verdict. The appellants complain that counsel -were limited to ‘45 minutes each in final' argument to the jury. This is a matter within the •’discretion of the trial judge, and hé did not' abuse his discretion. ' The trial judge is .to be commended for exercising a-firm control of the-trial. <

¶2The only, question presented which merits even a brief discussion concerns insurance. Apparently the' defendants carried no insurance and they tried ^t several points to present this to the. jury beginning' with questions on the voir dire. The ' trial judge consistently refused to permit this. Several of the refused requested charges told the jury that’ the question of insurance was irrelevant and should be disregarded. In other words, the defendants’ counsel recognized that th'e subject of -insurance was irrelevant. ■He wished to set up a straw man and then ■knock, him down, The trial.: judge was right in excluding this irrelevancy from the beginning. The reason the subject is worth mentioning at all is to point .out that this case decides'no'more* than the facts justify — that to exclude as irrelevant the fact of the non-existence of insurance is not error. Whether it is error and, if so, *392under what circumstances, to permit a defendant to show that he is not indemnified by insurance, is not here decided.

¶3Affirmed.

ROBERTS, C. J., and TERRELL and MATHEWS, JJ., concur.
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