St. Cloud Common Council v. Karels

Wo appeal lies from an order denying a reargument. • An order .denying a motion for a new trial, made by the district court upon an appeal from the judgment of a justice’s court upon questions of law alone, is not an appealable order, under 1878 G. S. ch. 86, § 8. (Opinion published 66 N. W. Rep. 592.)

Appeal by defendant, Mary Karels, from an order of the District Court of Stearns County, D. B. Bearle, J., made March 1, 1893. By Sp. Laws 1877, ch. 234, paupers were made a town charge in the County of Stearns and it was therein provided that every poor' person unable to earn a livelihood and residing in that County should be supported by his or her father, mother or other nearest relative, if of sufficient ability. If such parent or relative failed so to do, he or she should forfeit fifteen dollars per month, during such failure, for the use of the poor, to be recovered in the name of the town supervisors, if such poor person lived in a town, or in the name of the city council, if living in St. Cloud. Under this statute the Common Council of the City of St. Cloud brought this action August 6, 1892, in a Justice’s Court against Peter Karels and Mary Karels his wife to recover of them fifteen dollars for failing to support during the month of July, 1892, their daughter, Anna Vaughn, a poor person unable, in consequence of bodily infirmity, to earn her livelihood. The defendants answered that Mrs. Vaughn’s bodily infirmity was caused by the negligence of the plaintiff in failing to keep in repair its sidewalk on St. Germain Street, and that an action by Mrs. Vaughn against the City for damages was then pending in the District Court. Peter Karel's had no property and was discharged, but judgment was rendered by the Justice August 26, 1892, against Mary Karels for $15 damages and $49.57 costs. She appealed to the District Court on questions of law alone. The judgment was there affirmed and judgment entered on February 4,1893. She moved for a new trial, but was denied by an order made March 1, 1893. She then appealed to this Court. The City Council moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the order appealed from, though termed an order denying a new trial, is not such an order in fact, but only an order refusing to set aside the decision of a question of law and grant a reargument of a legal question it had already decided. That the appeal should have been from the judgment.