Algier v. Steamer Maria

Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court—Cope, J. concurring.

Several points are made by the Appellant.

1. The first is, that a jury having tried a case involving the liability of the defendant for a similar cause of action depending upon the same general considerations, were incompetent to sit in this case against the objection of the defendant. The more specific grounds of objection to the panel were, that the defendant had been sued for negligence in several cases, the consequence of which negligence, as alleged, was the setting on fire and burning property, on or near the banks of the river, navigated by defendant.

We do not see how the Court could determine in advance of the development of the facts that the questions involved in this case were to be the same as in the case before tried by the jury. They might or might not have been. The opinion expressed or implied by the jury in their verdict, was merely hypothetical. It was merely the conclusion they drew from the facts in evidence, and the law given them in charge in the particular case before them. It would be absurd to say that, if he had rendered a verdict a year before upon facts before them going to establish, or which they supposed established, the liability of a steamer for acts of negligence, they could not now sit upon a case which might involve the same liability; and the question is not different merely because the first trial was immediately before the last. The jury could not possibly know what facts would be brought out in the case, nor what the argument of counsel would be, nor what the rulings of the Court. It does not follow that A, in his suit with B, will introduce the same proof or his1 counsel conduct the suit in the same way that a previous party [170]has done in a case somewhat similar in its general features. If one plaintiff sues a Sheriff for not making the money on an execution, and the jury find for plaintiff, and if a dozen other plaintiffs should afterward sue for similar malfeasance, it would scarcely be contended that a juror was incompetent in every case after the first. We think the Court did not err in overruling the objection to the panel. ■ A conclusive reason is, that the mere suggestion by the counsel that the jury had just passed on a similar case, could not be noticed by the Court, as the Court could not possibly know that the caso then before it was, or was to be, similar to one just tried.

2. The objection to the jurors, individually, failed for the same cause; for though the juror knew his opinion in the case tried by him, he could not know that the next was, or was to be, like it; and the mere suggestion of counsel was not proof of this fact, either to Court or jury; and there seems to be no other showing.