Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/141

 PULLBE i». PLETOHEE. 129 �the several points of fact and of law involved in tbese prop- ositions the learned counsel of the parties have been fuily heard, in able and elaborate arguments, occupying many hours of three successive days, and to those arguments I have willingly given the deliberate consideration to which they are entitled, as the utterances of astute and experienced courisel- lors, upon topios with which they have made themselvea famUiar by diligent study. The resulta of that consideration it becomes my duty now to announce, aiid this at as small an expenditure of time and paper as may be consistent mtb intelligibility and precision. �Ana,first, of the first ground of the motion, "that the ver- dict was against the evidence, and without evidence to sup- port it," Of a court's rights and duties of disposing of a motion for a new trial, when claimed upon this ground, I had occasion fuUy to treat in the case of Hunt v. Pooke, reported in 1 Abbott's G. & D. Ct. Rep. 656. Such a motion I held was addressed to the discretion of the court, remarking, in conclusion, that in my judgment "it was no abuse of that dis- cretion on the part of a Pennsylvahia jurist, who, on the return of a verdict by a jury, on the instant exclaimed, 'Mr. Clerk, enter an order that the verdict be set aside. I wish it to be understood that in my court it requires a verdict from thirteen to rob a banking corporation.' " Nor was it, in my ]'udgment, any abuse of that discretion on the part of our own Justice Curtis, when, at Newport, a motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against evidence being ten- dered him by a very able and pertinacious member of the bar, he, without a moment's hesitation, said: "You can^ule your motion, Mr. G., but I overrule it now and at once, for I have heard the case tried and am satisfied with the verdict." To the views then expressed I still adhere, and would here refer as embodying the principles or rules which must guide me in passing upon the motion under consideration. These I found in the concurring rulings or declarations of Justice Story and Justice Gurtis; the first saying, in 1 Sumner, eTl : "I hold it to be my duty to abstain from interfering with the verdict of a jury unless the verdict is clearly against the �v.6,no.2— 9 ��� �