Frye v. Ferguson

Citations

• 6 S.D. 392
• 61 N.W. 161
• 1894 S.D. LEXIS 160

Syllabus

<p>1. It is not error to admit an attorney of 20 years’ practice to testify as to the value of legal services with which he is shown to be familiar, although he is not practiced in the county or state where such services were rendered, but in an adjoining state; there being nothing tending to show that the value of such services was not the same in both places.</p> <p>2.. Such fact might affect the weight of his testimony with the jury, but it would not render his evidence incompetent.</p> <p>3. Where a party sits by and allows the trial court to instruct the jury orally, without objection or request that they be instructed in writing, the charge being taken down by the stenographer, such party cannot in this court assign error upon this 'method of giving instructions, or to the failure of the court to give the charge to the jury in writing, to be taken by them in their retirement.</p> <p>4. A party cannot in a court of error avail himself of an omission of the court to instruct the jury upon a point in respect to which he asked no instruction.</p> <p>5. When the affidavits for and against a motion for a new trial on the ground of-newly-discovered evidence leave the question of fact in doubt as to whether the evidence.was newly discovered or not, this court will not disturb the decision of the trial court refusing the same.</p> <p>6. An assignment that the verdict is not sustained by the evidence will not be considered where such was not made a g-round in the motion for a new trial, and the record nowhere contains a specification of the particulars in which the evidence is claimed to be insufficient.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the court.</p>