Court Opinion

ID: 9604527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:23:04.753477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:48.816002
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
“The Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals shall not decide any question unless it is made by a specific assignment of error in the bill of exceptions, and shall decide any question made by such assignment.” Code § 6-1607. As stated in Rushing v. Akins, 210 Ga. 460 (4) (80 S. E. 2d 813): “There is no exception to the decree upon this ground, and it is well settled that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to pass upon questions not made in the record.”
In this record there is no assignment of error on the failure of the trial court to submit this case to the jury, and this court is accordingly without jurisdiction to reverse the case on this ground. The plaintiffs in error contend in their motion to rehear that the failure of the trial court to refer the exceptions of fact to a jury was error. Nothing in the opinion of this court contradicts that assumption of the plaintiffs in error. It is also contended that the plaintiffs in error did not waive a jury trial, as shown by the fact that in their exceptions of fact to the auditor’s report they state that the case ought to be referred to a jury. With this, also, this court agrees. However, nothing in the exceptions of fact to the auditor’s report can be construed as an exception to the act of the trial court in refusing to refer the exceptions of fact to a jury for the simple reason that an exeep*220tion to an illegal procedure of the trial court must be taken after the trial court acts, and the exceptions of fact were necessarily presented to the trial court before he acted upon them. When he did act, if the plaintiffs in error considered he had acted illegally, they should then have excepted, and the only place for such exception (since the abolition of exceptions pendente lite) is the bill of exceptions itself. There is no exception to the failure of the court to refer the case to a jury in the bill of exceptions, and there is not and could not be such an exception in the exceptions to the auditor’s report since the latter may complain only of errors made by the auditor (not the trial court) and the record before the auditor must show the matter to which exception is taken. Code §§ 10-301, 10-302.
As pointed out in the opinion, this part of the decision is controlled by Adams v. Bishop, 42 Ga. App. 811 (6), supra, but it is also controlled by general law and the unbroken line of decisions of this court and the Supreme Court that errors not assigned in the bill of exceptions cannot be considered on appeal. If anything to the contrary appears in Manry v. Hendricks, 66 Ga. App. 442 (18 S. E. 2d 97) the Manry case, being in conflict with the older Adams case and this rule of law, must yield. There is, however, a distinction between the cases. In the Manry case the defendant, in his exceptions, prayed for a jury trial, and the overruling of the exceptions and this prayer was assigned as error in the bill of exceptions “as being contrary to law”, whereas here there is no prayer for a jury trial, and there is no exception to the judgment overruling the exceptions to the auditor’s report on the ground that such judgment is contrary to law. Reference to the exception to the judgment overruling the exceptions to the auditor’s report in this case discloses only that error is assigned thereon “for the reasons specified in each specific numbered exception filed by the defendant.” One of the exceptions to the auditor’s report did suggest that the case be referred to a jury, but did not pray for this relief, for which reason the overruling of the exceptions must relate only to alleged errors committed by the auditor. This raises the sole question of whether or not there was evidence to support the auditor’s findings of fact.
On the other hand, in the Manry case the exceptions to the *221findings of fact of the auditor prayed for a reference to the jury. Although such a prayer in exceptions to an auditor’s report is not here recognized as proper procedure, under Chapter 10 of the Code providing for the reference of cases to auditors, it was so treated in the Manry case. Even so, the record here cannot be construed as revealing that the trial court overruled a prayer for a jury trial where no such prayer appears in the record. On the other hand, the prayer in this case is: “Wherefore, defendant prays that the court make careful inquiry into and hear each exception of law and fact and sustain the same, disallowing the report of the auditor in each of the particulars herein specified.” This prayer is not construed to preclude jury action for it is recognized that the court might do this by jury. On the other hand, the court had jurisdiction of the subject matter, and the prayer cannot be construed as a prayer for jury reference.
In Weaver v. Cosby, 109 Ga. 310 (1) (34 S. E. 680), also, cited, there was a specific exception in the bill of exceptions to the failure to refer the case to a jury. The Weaver case deals with the question of waiver of a jury trial at the time of such trial; not, as here, with the waiver of a right to insist on reversal in the appellate court by failure to assign as error the court’s refusal of jury reference at the time the appeal is taken.