Case ID: ga_63/html/0230-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Jackson, Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

West, administrator vs. The Bank of Americus.
    [Warner, Chief Justice, being engaged in presiding over the senate, organized as a court of impeachment, did not sit in this case.]
    A verdict doubtful in meaning m consequence of being written partly in figures and partly in letters, thereby rendering its amount somewhat uncertain, may be explained and read in the light of the pleadings, and the true amount he thus ascertained.
    Yerdict. Practice in the Superior Court. Before Judge Crisp. Lee Superior Court. March Adjourned Term, 1879.
    Plaintiff in error moved to set aside the judgment obtained against him by defendant in error, because it did not conform to the verdict on which i was founded. The court overruled the motion, and the fnovant excepted.
    For the other facts see the opinion.
    J. H. West; Allen Fort, for plaintiff in error.
    W. A. Hawkins ; Guerry & Son, for defendant.
   Jackson, Justice.

This was a motion to set aside the judgment on the ground that it did not follow the verdict. The verdict is for eighteen hundred dollars, written thus : “ eighteen 1800 dollars;” the judgment is for eighteen hundred dollars, written out in full. The pleadings show that the petition, rule nisi and absolute to foreclose the mortgage, were all for eighteen "hundred dollars.

Plaintiff in error contends that the word “eighteen” in writing, qualifies the following written word “dollars,” and that the verdict should be read leaving out the figures “1800.” On the other hand, the pleadings all show that eighteen hundred dollars was the sum sued for in the petition and rule, and it was right, we think, to read the verdict in an .ambiguous case in the light of the pleadings. Besides, the certificate of the judge shows that there were ear-marks which could not be sent up by the clerk as part of the record, which assisted in his interpretation of the verdict. See 40 Ga., 249.

Judgment affirmed.