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80 Miss. 340

Herrin, Lambert & Co. v. Daly

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided March 15, 1902

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1902-03-15

Prom the circuit court of Pearl Diver county. Hon. Thaedeus A. 'Wood, Judge. Daly, the appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; Herrin, Lambert & Co., a copartnership, appellees, were defendants there. Prom a judgment for $1,500 in plaintiffs favor defendants appealed to the supreme court. The opinion of the court sufficiently states the facts upon which the case was resolved.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““On the cross-examination by appellee’s counsel of Lambert, one of the defendants below, as a witness, he was asked if there was any one back of his firm who would satisfy the judgment if obtained. The court overruled an objection to this, and we think this action error. It could not conceivably throw any light on the issue, and could have no other tendency than to seduce a verdict on the ground that an insurance company, and not the defendants, would be affected. The error was not cured, because, the objection having been put on the basis of irrelevancy and incompetency, and also for the further reason that the accident indemnity policy was in writing not produced, the writing was then read in evidence by plaintiff without renewed objection.” (80 Miss, at 342).”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including Horsford v. Carolina Glass Co., Lum v. Jackson Industrial Uniform Service, Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently October 2008 · most notably Avent v. Tucker (1940), 224 So. 2d 216 - Catholic Diocese of Natchez-Jackson v. Jaquith (1969)

2 federal appellate · 43 state decisions

7019021910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

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 →

Calhoon, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of' the court.

¶2The declaration is for damages for a serious hurt to appellee, an employe at a'saAvmill owned by appellants, who were not a *342corporation, but a private partnership. Of course the fellow-servant rule applies in full force, and recovery could be had only if the injury was caused by the negligence of the master, or his negligence co-operating with that of a fellow servant. On the cross-examination by appellee’s counsel of Lambert, one of the defendants below, as a witness, he was asked if there was any one back of his firm who would satisfy the judgment if obtained. The court overruled an objection to this, and we think this action error. It could not conceivably throw any light on the issue, and could have no other tendency than to seduce a verdict on the ground that an insurance company, and not the defendants, would be affected. The error was not cured, because, the objection having been put on the basis of irrelevancy and incompetency, and also for the further reason that the accident indemnity policy was in writing, not produced, the writing was then read in evidence by plaintiff without renewed objection. The principle was decided against defendants, and exception taken, and they were not required by law to repeat their objection. The conflict of testimony as to liability for this unfortunate injury makes too close a case to admit of affirmance regardless of this error. In order to exclude a conclusion, it is proper to say that we do not pass on the instructions to the jury, given and refused.

¶3Reversed and remanded.

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