“ ‘[i]t generally is ground for reversal that the jury obtained and took into the jury room a dictionary which they consulted to determine the meaning of legal or other terms, which they do not understand’ ” (citation omitted)
How later courts described this case
- “ ‘[i]t generally is ground for reversal that the jury obtained and took into the jury room a dictionary which they consulted to determine the meaning of legal or other terms, which they do not understand’ ” (citation omitted)
- jurors’ affidavits not received to show that one juror had read aloud a definition of undue influence from an encyclopedia
- “It is firmly established in this State that jurors will not be allowed to attack or overthrow their verdicts, nor will evidence from them be received for such purpose.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
HiggiNS, J.,
dissenting: The dominant purpose of a jury trial is to determine and declare the truth with respect to disputed issues of fact. The pleadings, the evidence, the argument of counsel, and the charge of the court — these and these only — form the basis for the verdict. The jurors sit together as a body, return the verdict as a bodiy, then disperse. It is a matter of’ public policy that they should not thereafter be permitted individually to impeach what they did as a -body.
However, when it develops that a verdict was influenced by something entirely extrinsic to the trial, taken into the jury room and used in the deliberation which has, or may have, influenced the verdict, it thereby loses its shield from impeachment. This is so for the simple reason that the verdict was not rendered as the law contemplates. No doubt the juror who took his own law to the jury room and used it for the purpose of influencing the verdict, acted in good faith. A juror who is not satisfied with the law as laid down by the court has no right to supplement it by his own research. If this be proper, the next juror who is dissatisfied with the evidence may want to bring in another deed or to call another witness.
In denying the motion to set aside the verdict, the court said: "... assuming that there is a variance with the court’s instructions, and assuming that some of the jurors followed that in lieu of what the court said, yet can you go .into the jury room and prove that without running right head-on into that wall that has been put up that jurors cannot impeach their own verdict. That is the stone wall.”
The court orderedi the affidavits of the jurors stricken from the motion to set the verdict aside. It seems apparent the .court made its ruling refusing to set aside the verdict as a matter of law and not of discretion. I think it was error not to inquire and to act in the court’s discretion.
Too, I am unable to agree with the statement in the majority opinion that the best evidence rule .prevents a witness from testifying to the content's of a former will (not involved in the litigation) without accounting for the loss or nonproduction of the document.
I vote to set the verdict aside and award a new trial.
I am authorized to say that PARKER, J., joins in this diissent.