Court Opinion

ID: 9598347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:08:05.341501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:09.275358
License: Public Domain

*342Townsend, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. The fourth, fifth and sixth special grounds of the amended motion for a new trial all assign error on the failure of the court to' take necessary steps upon certain objections made to the allegedly improper argument of counsel for defendant in error before the juiy. Counsel first stated that the case was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, and the case was not an ordinary law case but one under the only compensation act applying to railroad' men; that it was necessary for the jury to know the history of the 'legislation to understand the difference between it and an ordinary negligence action, and that prior to the passage of the act the need for it had became a national scandal. Objection was made to the statement that the act was a compensation act, to any need for going into the history of the act, to the fact that any other situation was a national scandal, to certain statistics counsel was “about to read” and to “his entire line of argument.” This objection was sustained only to the extent that no statistics compiled in other cases should be considered by the jury. Counsel then proceeded to- state the difference between an F. E. L. A. case and an ordinary master-servant negligence case by stating that the present act did away with three common-law defenses: assumption of risk, fellow servant rule, and contributory negligence. Counsel again objected on the ground that these were not issues in the case, had not been interposed as defenses, and accordingly were irrelevant, confusing and inflammatory argument. Counsel for the plaintiff then stated that the defendant was in fact trying to bring in exactly these defenses under another name, that of non-negligence, and “we will connect this argument up with that, Your Honor.” The court then allowed counsel to proceed, saying, “Your contention is that you intend to connect what you are arguing with the law as applied in this case ... I will see how you connect it.”
Counsel for the plaintiff then commenced reading the stated purpose of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act as stated in a Federal case. The defendant again objected that “it doesn’t illustrate this case at all and it’s not proper argument, and if that type of argument continues I want my objection to be continued on that.” The court cautioned counsel to address any *343citations of law to the court and not the jury, and counsel continued reading from the case, apparently to the court, but in the presence of the jury. He then expatiated further on the assumption of risk doctrine, and ended by saying: “Gentlemen, be careful, be careful, that you do not fall into one trap that Mr. Pedrick will seek to cause you to fall into, and that he will call these other facts which make up assumption of risk — he will call it something else. . . They claim the railroad was not negligent. Why? Because he should have got out of the way. That’s the assumption of risk. That’s non-negligence as stated in Rogers versus the Coast Line Railroad Company, which is the very thing they tried to do in that case — just to call it another name; and we state again what the Supreme Court of the United States said: ‘Unless great care is taken the servant’s rights will be sacrificed by simply charging him with assumption of risk under another name, and no such result can be permitted under this law.”
The objections interposed were sufficient to present a question for review to this court as to whether the court erred in permitting the “line of argument” which counsel for the plaintiff made — that is, that based upon certain decisions of the Supreme Court, the purpose of the act under which the case was tried was to abolish certain common-law defenses, and that such defenses should not be permitted although not urged eo nomine but under the guise of non-negligence, which, counsel contended, was the fact here before the jury. In Brooks v. State, 183 Ga. 466 (188 S. E. 711) it is held that such an objection will give a right to review; that the general rule in Smoot v. State, 146 Ga. 76, 81 (90 S. E. 715) is that in no case will the trial judge’s ruling be reversed for not going further than requested; that an exception to this rule is that if improper remarks are grave and injurious enough a new trial will be granted whether or nob a ruling is invoked, and even though the court has granted all the relief possible short of the grant of a requested mistrial, if the injury is so grave that no act of the trial judge can repair the damaging effect. But it is also there held, p. 469, that “even where there is a-basis for review, it does not follow that a reversal should result. . . In such review this court will con*344sider the ruling of the court, together with the motion and the cause of the motion. From these, under the principles applicable thereto, it should be determined whether there is such error as will cause a reversal.”
It is not improper to allow counsel to read the law to the court in the presence of the jury. Rome Railroad Co. v. Barnett, 94 Ga. 446 (2) (20 S. E. 355). It is not improper for counsel to state legal propositions to the jury. In Ransone v. Christian, 56 Ga. 351, 355, it was held: “Where counsel is making a legal argument or battling to establish a legal principle which he wishes the court to charge as the law of the case, he must argue to the court; but we cannot suppose it was intended to prevent counsel from stating legal propositions to the jury. . . Counsel cannot know what the court will charge; they cannot lay down to the jury the law as he will charge it, unless they be gifted with fore-knowledge; they must, therefore, be allowed to lay down to the jury the law which they think the court will charge, or, in other words, their own view of the law; and in the light of that law argue the facts. To curtail this right within the narrow compass suggested by the ruling of the court below would be to close the mouth of the counsel, and to overthrow all fair and full trial by jury.”
The “line of argument” to which ran the primary objection, or series of objections, was a valid line of argument. By it, counsel for the plaintiff sought to plant in the jury’s mind three common-law defenses to a master-servant negligence case not available in an F.E.L.A. case; he then sought to show that the defense urged by this defendant was not, as it purported to be, freedom from negligence on its own part. The facts of the case appear to be that the plaintiff, who was engaged in scraping one side of an engine, was injured when an employee sprinkling the other side with potash water negligently shot the acid over onto the plaintiff, and also that there was an issue of whether the plaintiff should have immediately protected himself from further injury by removing his clothing. Accordingly, the plaintiff’s “general line of argument” — the differences between the law in this case and the law in an ordinary master-servant negligence case, was, generally speaking, a proper line *345of argument and there was no error in allowing counsel to continue with it. Likewise, the reading of the case in question to the court in the jury’s presence (although it would take a person of naive temperament to believe that this was done without any hope of collateral benefit from the jury “eavesdropping” on the judicial language) was not reversible error. If counsel began by reading directly to the jury, the objection to this practice was sustained and the error does not appear to have been repeated. We do not think the impropriety sufficiently gross to say that the right to. a fair trial demanded that the court reprimand counsel for commencing to read the case to the jury where no request for such reprimand was made, and the objection was in fact sustained. Deen v. Baxley State Bank, 62 Ga. App. 536 (3) (8 S. E. 2d 689). This disposes of the fifth and sixth special grounds. As to the fourth ground, certain language used by counsel was out of order — for instance, the statement that “before the passage of this act, the need for it had become a national scandal.” This statement, however, referred to a state of facts which counsel had already pointed out was a historical condition existing more than seventy years ago rather than at present. The jury could not logically charge this to the defendant. It was in fact included in the objection made, but in the colloquy that followed neither court nor counsel returned to that subject, the court ruling on the latter part of the objection. Another portion of the same objection dealt with the statement that “this is the only compensation act which applies to a railroad man,” which statement was true if construed to mean it is the only act under which a railroad man may receive from his employer compensation for his injuries. The specific objections set out in special ground 4 became merged in the general objection to “this line of argument” and the ruling of the trial court thereon did not constitute reversible error.

Felton, C. J., and Nichols, J., concur in this dissent.