Court Opinion

ID: 9851567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:15:05.180116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:52.220438
License: Public Domain

Townsend, Judge,
concurring specially. Division 1 of the majority opinion deals with the admissibility of evidence contended by plaintiff in error to be inadmissible and prejudicial in accordance with her assignment of error contained in her first ground of the amended motion for new trial. It there appears that upon motion of her counsel to rule out the evidence complained of the trial judge reserved his decision on the objection and motion to rule out the evidence until he could see whether it was made material by the introduction of a certain contract referred to in the evidence which had not at that time been introduced. Later her counsel renewed his motion to rule out the evidence complained of, whereupon the trial court stated as follows: “I will rule on that when and if he offers the contract in evidence. If he fails to introduce it of course I will rule it out.” It is contended that this ruling was harmful to> the plaintiff because, although it constituted a ruling out of the evidence' in accordance with the motion, it occurred in the absence of the jury which was not instructed by the court either in the charge or elsewhere not to consider the evidence.
Although the motion for new trial fails to recite whether or not the contract in question was introduced in evidence, it is not shown anywhere in the record and accordingly I presume it was not introduced. However, the conclusion of the movant that the ruling of the court amounted to a ruling out of the evidence is not supported by the facts recited elsewhere in this ground of the motion for new trial. The ruling of the court constitutes no more than a statement that at some future stage in the course of the trial he will rule on the motion, and that in the event the defendant fails to introduce the contract in question that ruling will be made in favor of the plaintiff’s motion to rule out the evidence. This is a conditional ruling which re*569quires a renewed motion to the court at a later stage of the trial to require the court to make a final naling on the objection, in the absence of which the objection will be deemed to have been waived. This ground of the motion for new trial recites that the evidence complained of was subsequently ruled out but the ruling was made outside the presence of the jury, and the jury was not instructed by the court either in the court’s charge or elsewhere not to consider the evidence. I construe this statement in the amended motion for new trial to refer to the conditional ruling herein discussed and to consider it as having ruled out the evidence due to the subsequent failure of the defendant to introduce into evidence the contract in question. In any event, a ruling by the court outside the presence of the jury that the evidence was out did not have any effect for the reason that the jury would have no way of knowing about it, and such a ruling would have been subject to a proper assignment of error. However, no assignment of error is made on that ruling, if any such was made. The complaint is not to such a ruling, but to the judgments of the court overruling motions to‘ rule it out. These judgments were conditional. Atlanta & W. P. R. Co. v. Truitt, 65 Ga. App. 320 (2) (16 S. E. 2d 273); Milligan v. Milligan, 209 Ga. 14 (1) (70 S. E. 2d 459). Accordingly, no issue is presented by this ground of the amended motion for new trial on the question of the admissibility of the evidence to which the objection was interposed.