Wills v. Hardcastle

Citations

• 19 Pa. Super. 525
• 1902 Pa. Super. LEXIS 144

Syllabus

<p>Appeals — Record—Evidence.</p> <p>To justify a reversal of a judgment after a trial, it must be made apparent from the record, not only that an error has been committed, but that it materially injured the rights of the party complaining. To reverse without being satisfied in regard to the last branch of the proposition would in many cases be to overturn judgments for errors on abstract points, not properly involved in the court below.</p> <p>Appeals — Paper-books—Failure to print testimony — Practice.</p> <p>On an appeal from a judgment on a verdict, a failure to print the testimony will justify the appellate court in dismissing all the assignments of error upon which the testimony has a bearing.</p> <p>Appeals — General assignment of error.</p> <p>Where plaintiff’s statement sets forth a good cause of action, and where a verdict has been rendered for the plaintiff and a question of law has not been reserved, a general assignment of error alleging error in entering judgment on the verdict is not good.</p> <p>Where a defendant does not except generally to the charge and answers to points, but excepts merely to portions of the charge and to answers to certain of the points, he cannot assign as error an answer to a point, as to which he took no exception.</p> <p>Practice, O. P. — Trial—Evidence—Inf erence from nonproduetion of evidence.</p> <p>Where evidence which would properly be part of a case, is within the control of the parly whose interest it would be to produce it, and, without satisfactory explanation, he fails to do so, the jury may draw an inference that it would be unfavorable to him. It is an inference of fact, not an inference of law.</p> <p>In Pennsylvania this principle of evidence is not confined to the nonproduction of documentary proof in the possession or under the control of the party, but may be applied by the jury to the nonproduotion by the party having the burden of proof, of witnesses, who, presumably, are best informed on the subject of in