Newson v. Hawley

CURTIS, J.

In this case the defendants made a motion for a directed verdict, which motion was denied and the case was thereupon submitted to the jury. Thereafter the jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and the court of its own motion set aside the verdict and ordered judgment in favor of the defendants. From this order this appeal was taken. By section 629 of the Code of Civil Procedure, enacted in 1923, it is provided that “When a motion for a directed verdict, which should have been granted, has been denied and a verdict rendered against the moving party, the court, at any time before the entry of judgment, either of its own motion or on motion of the aggrieved party, shall render judgment in favor of the aggrieved party notwithstanding the verdict.” If, therefore, defendants’ motion for a directed verdict should have been granted, then the order of the court setting aside the verdict and directing judgment in defendants’ favor was in accordance with the terms of section 629 of the Code of Civil Procedure, above quoted, and should stand.

The limits within which the trial court may exercise its power to direct a verdict have been definitely fixed and

[190]

determined by decisions of this court of comparatively recent rendition. In

Estate of Caspar,

172 Cal. 147, it was held, page 149 [155 Pac. 631, 632], that “the right of a court to direct a verdict is, touching the condition of the evidence, absolutely the same as the right of the court to grant a non-suit. It may grant a nonsuit only when, disregarding conflicting evidence and giving to plaintiff’s evidence all the value to which it is legally entitled, herein indulging in every legitimate inference which may be drawn from that evidence, the result is a determination that there is no evidence of sufficient substantiality to support a verdict in favor of plaintiff if such a verdict were given.” To the same effect is

Estate of Sharon,

179 Cal. 447, where the rule is stated in the following language, page 459 [177 Pac. 283, 288]: “It is a settled rule of law regarding trials by jury that in a proper case the court has full power to direct the jury to render a verdict. This power exists in favor of the defendant when there is no substantial evidence tending to prove all the controverted facts necessary to establish the plaintiff’s case. It is not necessary that there should be an absence of conflict in the evidence. To deprive the court of the right to exercise this power, if there be a conflict, it must be a substantial one.”