Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1907 — First Jury Trial. [ARTICLE]

First Jury Trial.

The first jury trial of the present term of court was held Tuesday. Charles Willuemeier sued Lavin Peck, of Walker, for wages as a farm hand from July 9th to Dec. 30, 1906. The plaintiff is a young man of about 22 years old, and evidently a good and capable hand and worthy of his hire, but the defendant set np the claim that the plaintiff was working for his board, and tho the plaintiff denied this and claimed he was to have wages, yet some other witnesses testified that Willuemeier had told them he was working for his board. If he worked thru the busiest season of the year for his board alone, what he would do during the winter, other than go to the pcor house, was not shown; nor wherewith he should be clothed. Thus it would appear that if he had agreed to work for his board, it mnst have been because of lack of mental understanding, and that he was being taken advantage of. Most of the jurors seem to have taken that view of the case and were in favor of giving the plaintiff a verdict com mensurate with his serv ices to the defendant, bnt two or three others did not take this view, and a com. promise verdict was the result giving the plaintiff 125, or about what his first month’s work was worth Judge Palmer, of Monticello, rendered his decision in the case of Gleason vs Wickiser tried some time ago. This was a suit to foreclose a mortgage on lots in Kniman, owned by the defendant, and which had an unrecorded mortgage on them when Wickiser bought it, but whose defense was that he had no knowledge of the existence of the mortgage. The Judge decided that he had knowledge of the mortgage, and gave the plaintiff judgment for about $450 and a decree of foreclosure.

The case of Erick Lund against Newton county, for extras in the construction of the court house in that county, was thrown out of court by the sustaining of a demurrer; but the plaintiff was given until the first day of the Septem ber term to file a sew complaint