1. APPEAL AND ERROR — Verdict — No Judgment. A writ of error lies from the Supreme Court to review only final judgments, and not verdicts of a jury which have not passed into final judgments.
2. Jury — Examination — Prejudicial Questions. In an action for damages growing out of an automobile collision, it is held that counsel had a right to ask prospective jurors if they were employed by, or interested in a certain insurance company.
3. Examination. Although counsel may have been supplied with the names, addresses, ages, occupations, and residences of jurors in the box, he was not restricted to this source of information in examining jurors on voir dire.
MR. JUSTICE CAMPBELL delivered the opinion of the court.
HYMAN TATARSKY, a minor, by Max Tatarsky (his so far as the record shows, was entered on verdict numbered 4 that the plaintiff in committing the wrong complained of by the defendant in his counterclaim was guilty of negligence consisting of a reckless and willful disregard of the rights and safety of the defendant.
The plaintiff Hyman Tatarsky is here with his writ of error to review the judgment rendered against him. On this application for a supersedeas his counsel argue only two propositions contained in his assignments of error: (a) That the special verdict authorizing a body judgment is the result of passion and prejudice and is not sustained by the evidence; (b) that on questions put to the jury on voir dire by counsel for defendant, the object was improperly to convey, and there was thereby communicated, to the jury the impression that an insurance company was involved in the litigation. These in their order.
1. We find nothing in the record upon which the first contention can be maintained. A writ of error from this court lies to review only final judgments of trial courts and not verdicts of a jury which have not passed into final judgments by order of the trial court. The jury returned a special verdict that Hyman Tatarsky recklessly disregarded the defendant's rights and his safety, but the court did not enter any judgment thereon. The only final judgment we find in the record is a compensatory judgment of $1,250, which the jury found was the amount of damage to the defendant's person and his car as the result of the collision. We need not, therefore, enter upon the question as to the meaning of "malice" or "reckless disregard of the defendant's rights and safety."
2. We find no merit in the other assignment. The record does not support it. On examination of the proposed jurors on voir dire defendant's counsel asked if any of the jurors in the box was employed by or interested in the International Indemnity Insurance Company. On objection by plaintiff's counsel the court ruled that the defendant had a right to inquire, without stating anything further about such relation, whether any juror was interested in or employed by an indemnity insurance company, to enable him to exercise peremptory challenges, if not challenges for cause, and in connection with this ruling the court specifically said that counsel must refrain from making any comment or further reference to the matter, and counsel heeded the admonition, but should confine himself, as he did, solely to eliciting information as to the relation, if any, which the jurors sustained towards the indemnity company.
We are of the opinion that defendant's counsel did not abuse his privilege in this effort to ascertain if any of the jurors was disqualified to determine the controversy. Plaintiff's counsel, however, argue that both counsel were supplied with the names, addresses, ages, occupations and residences of each man in the box which gave full information and, therefore, there was no reason for asking the questions which he did. Counsel was not restricted to this source of information, but it was his privilege to ask on voir dire such questions as he propounded. It is further said that reference was again made to an insurance company during examination of the defendant himself when his counsel was endeavoring to elicit from him the extent of the alleged damages to his car. The defendant in answer to a question by his counsel said that he consulted an employee of an automobile company for an estimate of the cost of repairing his damaged car which was given and an itemized statement thereof furnished. Defendant's counsel then asked him if he had that list with him to which the answer was that he did not. Counsel then asked where it was and the answer was that the indemnity company has got it in their hands. Plaintiff's counsel objected to the answer and asked that it be stricken and the court struck the answer from the record and directed the jury to disregard it.
The first part of the contention, that the examination by defendant's counsel had for its object to prejudice the jury by leading its members to believe that any damages that defendant suffered would be paid not by the plaintiff but by an insurance company, is not sustained by the record. The case of Coe v. Van Why, 33 Colo. 315, 80 P. 894, 3 was indemnified by some insurance company, the plaintiff had a right to know if any prospective juror was interested in or employed by it, referring with approval to the Firstbrook case. We think there is a well defined and substantial distinction between the Van Why case and the Firstbrook and Kalkman cases and that the ruling made by the trial court in this case is authorized by the two later cases.
Perceiving no prejudicial error in the record of which the plaintiff in error may complain, the application for supersedeas is denied and the judgment affirmed.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE ALLEN and MR. JUSTICE SHEAFOR concur.