{
  "id": 4969203,
  "name": "John Yowell v. Jacob Braden et al.",
  "name_abbreviation": "Yowell v. Braden",
  "decision_date": "1888-05-25",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "29",
  "last_page": "31",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "29 Ill. App. 29"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 246,
    "char_count": 2617,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.47,
    "sha256": "636e219b140225d8751c0dce9cdf0d339a6ffbe3cf3000f370f835d65c553623",
    "simhash": "1:bf6444f58cc72e25",
    "word_count": 441
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:26:47.112254+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "John Yowell v. Jacob Braden et al."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Per Guriam.\nTrespass by appellant against the commissioners and overseer of highways and others for entering upon his land and cutting down growing timber. The action was commenced in the fall of 1881, and has been four times tried. One jury failed to agree, and three found for the defendants. We infer from the record that two of these verdicts were set aside as being against the law and the evidence, and the last allowed to stand only because the power of the court to grant new trials for the same reason was thereby exhausted.\nThe trespass complained of was proved beyond dispute. Plaintiff\u2019s witnesses testified, from actual count and measurement, that defendants cut down about eighty trees and saplings from two to twenty-one inches, and that the actual damage was from $10 to $35, the average estimate being about $22.\nThe defense offered was that they acted in good faith, as road officers, to open and clear what they supposed to he a public highway regularly laid out and established, and that the damage was very little, if any. There was some evidence that they did so suppose, but none whatever that such was the fact, or that any care was taken to ascertain the fact, although plaintiff warned the overseer of this suit, if he should enter as threatened. This warning, given long before the entry, shows a disposition to avoid a law suit, and being so wilfully (we do not say maliciously) disregarded, he could not well do otherwise than bring it and persist in its prosecution as far as he may against such verdicts. We regard his claim shown by this record as something more than nominal damages, and if the amount of costs involved is large, it does not appear to he through any fanlt on his part. '\nThe matter of the tender, so called, was, in our ojnnion, improperly admitted and, notwithstanding the instruction as to its effect or bearing, probably prejudicial to the plaintiff\u2019s ease.\nFertile reasons thus indicated, the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.\nReversed and remanded.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Per Guriam."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Mr. S. S. Whitehead, for appellant.",
      "Messrs. Sellar & Dole and Egbert L. McKinlay, for appellees."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "John Yowell v. Jacob Braden et al.\nHighways\u2014Commissioners\u2014Trespass\u2014Cutting of Timber\u2014Tender\u2014\u25a0 Evidence.\nIn an action of trespass against commissioners and overseers of highways, for entering upon the plaintiff\u2019s land and cutting timber thereon, this court reverses a judgment for the defendants, although three juries have found for them, the verdict being contrary to the evidence.\n[Opinion filed May 25, 1888.]\nAppeal from the Circuit Court of Edgar County; the Hon. C. B. Smith, Judge, presiding.\nMr. S. S. Whitehead, for appellant.\nMessrs. Sellar & Dole and Egbert L. McKinlay, for appellees."
  },
  "file_name": "0029-01",
  "first_page_order": 25,
  "last_page_order": 27
}