Note 7 — PROFESSIONAL ETHICS.

Court and juries have their respective spheres assigned to them, within which each is to act and move, without encroaching upon the jurisdiction or province of the other. In order, then, that jurors as well as others may know that the direction and decision of the court, on any question of law arising in the course of the trial of an issue of fact, is not to be disregarded, and that a verdict given against such direction, whatever it may be, can never avail anything, unless it be to occasion additional delay, trouble, and expense to the parties, as also to the public, the course of the court is to set the verdict aside, and to order a new trial. And a court, from whose decisions on questions of law, an appeal lies, by writ of error or otherwise, ought never to depart from this course; otherwise the party against whom the verdict is given loses the benefit of such appeal, and of having the question decided by the Appellate Court, which would be a most unjust and illegal deprivation of his right. Per Kennedy, J., in Flemming v. Marine Ins. Co. 4 Whart. 67. After two concurring verdicts against the direction of the court in point of law, a new trial will still be awarded. Commissioners of Berks County v. Ross, 3 Binn. 520. "Principles the most firmly established might be overturned, because a second jury were obstinate and rash enough to persevere in the errors of the first, in a matter confessed by all to be properly within the jurisdiction of the court; I mean the construction of the law arising from undisputed facts." Per Tilghman, C. J., Ibid. 524. It is not necessary to refer to the numerous cases, both in the English and American courts, which accord with these principles. A judicious selection of the leading ones is to be found in the note to 1 Wharton's Troubat & Haly, 529. The text and the note are confined, of course, to civil cases.