DocketNumber: Docket No. 7975.
Judges: Knight
Filed Date: 10/7/1932
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 11/3/2024
At the trial of these consolidated actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiffs *Page 663 in an automobile accident, verdicts were rendered against the defendants for the total sum of $3,500, and judgments in conformity therewith were entered by the clerk on the same day. Nine days afterward Maude I. Weston, one of the defendants, served and filed in each action notice of motion to set aside the judgment and to re-enter the same in her favor, non obstanteveredicto; and approximately a month later the trial court granted the motions. From the orders made in that behalf plaintiffs prosecute these appeals.
[1] Section
[2] Respondent points out that prior to the submission of the cases to the jury she proposed an instruction directing a verdict in her favor, and that the trial court refused to give the same, which she contends was the equivalent of presenting a motion for a directed verdict and a denial thereof. The same contention, based on similar facts, was made in the Estate of Easton, supra (decided several months subsequent to the rulings of the trial court in the present actions), and was held to be without merit. The decision in that case was afterward taken before the Supreme Court on petition for hearing before that court, and the petition was denied. *Page 664
In the Estate of Easton, supra, also, as here, the record failed to show that the appellant was cognizant of the fact that an instruction for a directed verdict had been proposed; and in this connection respondent calls attention to certain language used in Ramos v. Service Brothers,
[4] As claimed by respondent, however, her motions for judgment non obstante veredicto were made in the alternative, as permitted by said code section, so as to reserve the right to apply for a new trial in the event the motions were denied; and that simultaneously therewith she filed motions for new trial. Therefore the orders appealed from are reversed, with directions to the trial court to re-enter the judgments in favor of plaintiffs in accordance with the verdicts, and thereupon to hear and determine respondent's motions for new trial.
Tyler, P.J., and Cashin, J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing of this cause was denied by the District Court of Appeal on November 5, 1932, and an *Page 665 application by appellants to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on December 2, 1932.