Taylor v. Burrell

Citations

• 7 Pa. Super. 461
• 1898 Pa. Super. LEXIS 324

Syllabus

<p>'Practice, Superior Court — Appeals—Charge—Trivial error in slating facts — Duly of counsel to call attention thereto.</p> <p>Where a judge, dealing in his charge with voluminous facts, in the hurry of a trial makes a slip, it is the duty of counsel to call his attention to it and then give him an opportunity to rectify it. When this is not done, and the point is raised for the first time in the appellate court, the error must be serious to induce that court to reverse, especially when all the facts had been left to the jury with a caution to remember them.</p> <p>There is no general unbending rule which requires counsel to interrupt the court to correct every misstatement of law or fact which they may conceive is being made, and such duty will not be imposed in the case of an inadequate or one-sided charge, nor in the case of the misstatement of a pivotal fact, but there are cases, like the case at bar, when it may fairly be said to be the duty of counsel to call the. attention of the court to an evident misstatement of fact, if such misstatement is to be relied on as error.</p> <p>Charge of court — General review of evidence.</p> <p>It is enough if the trial judge gives to the jury a general review of the evidence on the one side and the other, which fairly and adequately presents the course of the respective contention of the parties with enough reference to the items of evidence, to assist the jury in recalling it as a substantial whole, and to appreciate its bearings.</p>