Case ID: ga_41/html/0064-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "■ *WARNER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SMITH TREADWELL, plaintiff in error, v. WILLIAM J. PHINIZY, defendant in error.
    (Atlanta,
    June Term, 1870.)
    NEW TRIAL—VERDICT CONTRARY TO EVIDENCE-EVIDENCE CONFLICTING — DISCRETION OF COURT. — When there is evidence on both sides in relation to the matters in controversy between the parties, and a motion for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict is contrary to the evidence, this Court will not control the discretion of the Court below in refusing to grant a new trial, unless the verdict is decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence.
    Motion for New Trial. Before Judge Harrell. Terrell Superior Court. November Term, 1869.
    Phinizy sued Treadwell upon his promissory note for $586 00, made the 14th of January, 1862, and payable sixty days after date, to Phinizy, or bearer. The defense was that said note was given in part payment for certain land and personal property, including certain corn which Phinizy represented to be twelve hundred bushels, when in fact there were but two hundred bushels; that it was to be paid in Confederate currency then worth but thirty-three and one-third cents in the dollar; that Phinizy owed him $150 00 by reason of said land falling short of the number of acres represented by Phinizy to be therein, and by five acres which Phinizy sold to another for $150 00; and last, that Treadwell, by the result of the war, had lost his slaves worth $25,000 00.
    Plaintiff’s attorney introduced the note as evidence, and closed. It was shown by the defendant that Phinizy, in January, 1862, sold Treadwell certain land and personalty, at something over $9,000 00, Treadwell saying to Phinizy that he had nothing to pay but Confederate currency. The *land, seven hundred and twenty-five or thirty acres, was estimated at $10 00 per acre. Two cribs of corn were of said personalty. Phinizy said that the larger one has in it eight hundred bushels, and the smaller one four hundred bushels of corn by his actual measurement, and Truadwell said he would take the corn if there was so much in the cribs. It was estimated at $1 00 per bushel. That in fact said larger crib could not hold over five hundred and thirty-seven bushels of corn, and the smaller crib contained but three hundred bushels; $7,000 00 was paid for the land, and $1,600 00 on the personalty was- paid at the time of the trade, in Confederate currency, then worth thirty-three and a third cents in the dollar, and sixty days thereafter it was worth only twenty cents in the dollar, and that Treadwell lost fifteen slaves by emancipation.
    In rebuttal, a witness testified that in 1861 said land was worth $20 00 per acre, and that said large crib would hold eight hundred bushels of corn. It was admitted that at the date of the trade, corn sold readily at $1 00 per bushel in good money. It was shown that Treadwell'swapped the land which he bought of Phinizy, with six hundred other acres, for seventeen hundred acres of land near Spring Place, Georgia, (now worth $10 00 per acre,) giving $10,000 00 to boot. Where this other land was, when the trade was made, and in what currency the $10,000 00 was paid, do not appear. Nor does it appear how the Court charged the jury. The verdict for Phinizy was for $390 67, with interest and costs. Treadwell’s counsel moved for a new trial upon the grounds that the verdict was decidedly against the weight of the evidence, contrary to law and the charge of the Court. The Court refused a new trial, and that is assigned as error.
    C. B. Wooten, D. A. Vason, for plaintiff in error.
    P. M. Harper, by Lochrane & Clark, for defendant.
    
      
      NEW TRIAL—'VERDICT CONTRARY TO EVIDENCE-EVIDENCE CONFLICTING.—See foot-notes to Caldwell v. State, 34 Ga. 11; Wright v. State, 34 Ga. 111.
    
   ■ *WARNER, J.

The error assigned to the judgment of the Court below in this case, is the overruling the motion for a new trial, on the grounds specified therein. When there is evidence on both sides in relation to the matters in controversy between the parties, and the verdict of the jury is not decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence, this Court will not control the discretion of the Court below, in refusing to grant a new trial.

Let the judgment of the Court below be affirmed. .