Sterling Bridge Co. v. Pearl

Citations

• 80 Ill. 251

Syllabus

<p>1. Practice—effect of ordering a jury to try the issues, upon pending motions for rule to give security for costs, and for lea/oe to prosecute as a poor person. Where the record shows a motion by defendant for a rule on plaintiff to give security for costs, and, three days afterwards, a motion by plaintiff for leave to prosecute as a poor person, and no formal disposition of either motion, an order of the court, after the last motion, for a jury to be impanelled to try the issues is, in effect, an allowance of the last motion and a denial of the first.</p> <p>2. Same—impanelling jury. Neither party can be required to examine jurors touching tlieir qualification, unless there are twelve jurors in the box. It is not sufficient that there are twelve jurors called into the box in the first instance. If the plaintiff, on examination of the jurors, reduce the number in the box, by challenge, to less than twelve, the defendant is entitled to have the number of twelve in the box before he examines them.</p> <p>3. The plaintiff is not, however, required to pass upon the entire panel of twelve before the defendant is called upon to pass upon any of them, but each panel of four must be accepted by both parties before calling up another; but there must be, when either party requires it, during all the time the jury is being impanelled, twelve jurymen in the box; hence, when one is challenged, before proceeding further another must be called into the box; and then from those in the box another must be added to the panel of four being passed upon. When the panel of four is accepted by both parties, they become a part of the jury, and a panel of four more is called up and the same process repeated.</p> <p>4. Evidence—improper to permit parties to testify to opinions. Where one of the questions in a case was, whether the plaintiff, in a suit against a bridge company for damages occasioned by its negligence, had been guilty of contributory negligence in driving upon the bridge wi