Philadelphia Trust, Safe Deposit & Insurance v. Philadelphia & Erie Railroad

Citations

• 177 Pa. 38
• 35 A. 688
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 949

Syllabus

<p>Practice, C. P. — Charge of court — Duty of trial judge.</p> <p>Where a case has been reversed by the Supreme Court and sent back for a retrial, the trial judge, while having the right to adhere to his individual opinion, is bound to officially carry out the instructions of the Supreme Court, not alone by a submission of the case, but by a fair and impartial submission of the evidence.</p> <p>A charge whose tendency as a whole is to belittle and prejudice one side, and which is not in expression and tone a judicial presentation of the case, is error.</p> <p>Practice, C. P. — Charge of the court — Answers to points — Ownership of railroad bonds.</p> <p>In an action by an executor against a railroad company to recover the principal and interest of the bonds of the company, where the evidence for the defendant tends strongly to show that the testator had been a mere bailee of the bonds, and had disclaimed ownership of them, the trial judge commits reversible error in dwelling at length upon the fact that there was no evidence of the bailment to be found in the books of the company, and in failing to call the jury’s attention to the facts which tended to establish a bailment. The one-sidedness of the general charge is not cured by taking up the written points on both sides, and answering them by the words “affirmed” and “refused.”</p> <p>Ownership of railroad bonds — Evidence—Question for jury.</p> <p>In an action by an executor against a railroad company to recover the principal and interest of twenty-four bonds, there was evidence that the bonds were found in a desk in testator’s room, in a sealed and stamped envelope addressed to the railroad company in a handwriting other than testator’s; that all of testator’s other securities were kept with a trust company ; that the bonds were fourteen years overdue at the time of testator’s death, and only the first coupon had been removed; that the bonds ran for twenty years, and all others of this issue had been paid at mat