Affirming. W.B. Yowell owned a house in Lebanon. He brought this action against the Lebanon Waterworks Company to recover for the loss of his house by fire, alleging negligence in the water company in furnishing water to put out the fire. After the petition was filed, an agreed statement of facts was filed as a part of the petition. On these agreed facts the circuit court sustained the demurrer to the petition and dismissed it. The plaintiff appeals. The agreed facts are these: The Lebanon...
Affirming. Roy Young, an eleven year old boy, while riding with some older boys in a tunnel of the appellee coal company upon one of its electric motors, fell and was crushed and instantly killed thereunder. In this action by his administrator to recover damages for his death, the trial court, at the conclusion of plaintiff's testimony, sustained the motion of the defendant for a directed verdict, and a new trial having been denied, the administrator appeals. Appellant by counsel presents and...
Reversing. T.R. Wilson, who owned a tract of land on which W.A. Wynn held an oil and gas lease, brought this action against Wynn to recover damages for the negligent operation of the lease. The principal item of damage was for the injury to a spring alleged to have been caused by oil flowing from a well which had not been properly plugged after the casing had been removed. Damages were also sought for injury to a portion of his land, and to a fruit tree, alleged to have been caused by...
Reversing on original and affirming on cross appeal. From a judgment awarding her but $916.63 as her share of the rents and profits of a certain ice plant, Bessie Wyly has appealed, and Shelburn Wyly Kallenbach and Enos B. Wyly have prosecuted a cross-appeal from so much of the judgment as allows her anything in excess of $300. The Facts. On May 15, 1933, Sam S. Wyly died intestate. He owned other property, but all that is involved here is an operating ice plant known as "Fort Hill Ice Co." He...
Affirming. The appellant, Keen Wyatt, was convicted of the crime of malicious shooting at and wounding one Gordon Holeman and sentenced to a term of two years in the penitentiary. The sole ground urged for a reversal of the judgment is the alleged relationship of Willie Carver, one of the jurors, to the prosecuting witness, Holeman. The relationship of the juror to the prosecuting witness was made one of the grounds for a new trial and a hearing was had before the trial judge. A number of...
Reversing. *Page 39 At the regular election held on November 7, 1933, T.N. Newsome, Jr., was the Republican candidate, and Dan W. Wurts was the Democratic candidate, for the office of commissioner in the third district of Boyd county. As counted by the board of election commissioners, Wurts received 6,966 votes and Newsome 6,943 votes, thus giving Wurts a majority of 23. On November 17th following, Newsome filed his petition in the Boyd circuit court asking a recount of the ballots on the...
Reversing. Under authority granted to cities of the fourth class by section 3579a-1, Kentucky Statutes, the city of Jackson by and through its city council enacted an ordinance in May, 1925, providing for the construction of a system of sanitary sewers at the exclusive cost of owners of lots abutting on streets where the sewers were laid. The ordinance provided that the sewers should be constructed on the five-year payment plan, but reserved to the owner or owners of lots subject to assessment...
Reversing. A demurrer having been sustained to the petition of the plaintiff as amended and the plaintiff having declined to plead further, its petition was dismissed and it has appealed. From the petition as amended and the exhibits filed with it, it appears that in 1928 the appellee, a city of the fifth class, contracted with the appellant to build a number of streets within the municipality on the ten-year bond plan, and at the cost of the abutting property owner; that the streets were built...
Reversing. Leora Wright, on November 17, 1931, sued Conrad J. Clausen for $10,000 for injuries alleged to have been done her by the negligence of the defendant, the jury found for him, and she has appealed, and her grounds for reversal will be stated when we reach them in the course of this opinion. Undisputed Facts. The automobile collision, in which Mrs. Wright sustained her injuries, occurred about 6:30 p. m. Thursday, *Page 499 August 6, 1931, on the Poplar Level road. Plaintiff's husband,...
Affirming. *Page 458 On December 10, 1930, the appellee E.R. Rivard took out $18,000 fire insurance on his house and the contents of the house, which insurance consisted of four separate policies, viz., one policy in the World Fire Marine Insurance Company for $6,000 on the house and another with the same company for $3,000 on the contents of the house, and one policy in the Hudson Insurance Company for $6,000 on the house and one for $3,000 on the contents of the house. One week thereafter, on...
Reversing. Willie Wooton, a male child under seventeen years of age, was proceeded against in the juvenile session of the Lawrence county court for delinquency. A jury was impaneled, and the following verdict was returned: "We, the jury, agree and find the defendant guilty of being a delinquent." Thereupon a judgment was entered, adjudging him to be a delinquent and committing him to the house of reform until he was twenty-one years of age unless sooner paroled. The proceedings were instituted...
Affirming. This is the second appeal. On the first trial Wood's punishment was fixed at ten years' imprisonment. On the second, from which this appeal was taken, it was fixed at twelve years. The facts of the case were stated in our opinion in Wood v. Commonwealth, 246 Ky. 829 , 56 S.W.2d 556 . Therefore, we will not iterate them except as they are pertinent to the grounds of reversal as presented in the briefs. Florida Hargis, a witness for the commonwealth, detailed a conversation she had had...
Affirming. On June 21, 1919, Robert Woods (an appellant and a defendant below) and his wife, Sarah Woods, executed and delivered their joint note to B.P. White, Jr., whereby they agreed and promised to pay him six months thereafter the sum of $927.76, representing the amount of the last sale bond executed by defendants to the master commissioner of the Clay circuit court for the purchase price of a tract of land they had bought at a decretal sale. Upon the payment and discharge of *Page 264 the...
Affirming. The appellants, who were policyholders in the appellee American Life Accident Insurance Company, brought this suit in the Fayette circuit court against the appellee, alleging that it was an insurance company organized under the laws of the state of Kentucky for writing life, health, and accident insurance among persons of the colored race. The relief sought was a judgment against the defendant company for $800,000; for an accounting for all moneys, premiums, and dividends collected...
Reversing. The Ferguson-Willis Oil Company, claiming to be the owner of and entitled to the possession of an oil leasehold (called the Isaac Henry Lease) in Estill county, sued the Wood Oil Company, at common law, to *Page 580 recover possession of it, damages for its wrongful detention, and for oil taken therefrom which in its petition it placed at $100,000. After most elaborate preparation (the record comprises 15 volumes), the cause which had been transferred to equity was submitted and...
Reversing. On November 1, 1920, A.E. Evans and his wife, Addie Evans, G.W. Stepp and his wife, Ellen Stepp, and G.C. Stepp executed a coal lease to O.H. Jennings and H.J. Brock, trustees, who sold and assigned the lease to Winco Block Coal Company, and that company entered under the lease and began mining the coal. Addie Evans afterwards died and on April 13, 1931, this action was brought by the Stepps and her devisees against the Winco Block Coal Company, alleging that the royalties under the...
Affirming. Ellen Trabue sued M.E. Wilson to compel him to accept a deed made to him by her pursuant to a contract he had made with her. She was successful, and Wilson has appealed. Brent Trabue, who had asserted an interest in the property, is also an appellant. Wilson's answer was that the deed tendered would not invest him with the fee-simple title to the property, which the plaintiff had contracted she would do, not because of any defect in the tendered deed, but because the plaintiff was...
Affirming. This is an appeal from a judgment of the Bell circuit court rendered in an action seeking recovery of damages for personal injuries received while a passenger on one of the appellee's trains. Upon the conclusion of the evidence in behalf of the plaintiff, which was given by her alone, the court upon its own motion peremptorily instructed the jury to find for the defendant, when, a verdict being accordingly returned, it entered a judgment thereon dismissing the petition. Complaining...
Reversing. Turner Wilson appeals from a judgment convicting him of knowingly receiving stolen property, and fixing his punishment at two years' imprisonment. The evidence discloses that on Sunday night, December 3, 1933, the clothing store of Daniels Hutchinson, located in Morehead, was broken into by John Freeman, William Carpenter, and a man by the name of Arnold, and merchandise of a greater value than $20 was stolen and carried away. On the following morning Carpenter and Freeman, who were...
Reversing. The controlling question in this case is, Who has the right to nominate teachers in a school wherein are taught not only the elementary grades but also the higher grades, the subdistrict trustee or the county school superintendent Prior to the codification of the school laws by the Legislature of 1934 (Acts 1934, c. 65 [Ky. Stats. Supp. *Page 467 1934, sec. 4363 et seq.]), the controversy which had raged between the subdistrict trustee or trustees and the county superintendent over...
