Webber v. Brown

Citations

• 38 Ill. 87

Syllabus

<p>1. Instructions—should not he misleading. An instruction may be abstractly correct in view of the rights of certain persons, yet if it have a tendency to mislead the jury in reference to the rights of the immediate parties to the suit, it will be erroneous.</p> <p>2. So, upon the trial of the right of property in a lot of wheat, between a creditor of A, and one B, who claimed the property as having been raised on his own land by his tenant, to whom the land had been rented by A, as agent of B, the court instructed the jury, for the claimant, that if A rented the land in question to third parties, and as agent of B, and the wheat in question was raised by virtue of said renting, and belonged'to B, then they must find for the claimant. It was held, that although the instruction would have been unobjectionable as between the parties to the lease, yet it was erroneous as between the parties to this proceeding, because of its tendency to mislead the jury by giving them the impression that the renting of the land by A, in the name of B, settled the question of the title to the rent wheat, when the creditor claimed the land was A’s.</p> <p>3. Right of property—the claim may be made by an agent. Making the claim to property which has been levied upon, is merely an act in pais, and may be performed by an ordinary agent. Such an act is not embraced in the rule laid down in Robb v. Smith, 3 Scam. 47, that a person can not commence or prosecute a suit as “agent” for another, but only as an attorney at law.</p>