Court Opinion

ID: 9579268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:53:11.179801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:18.855844
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially. As I read the evidence in this record it appears that it overwhelmingly indicates that the party who placed the money in the savings accounts here involved was not the plaintiff’s husband. I really do not feel that the plaintiff has carried her burden of proof. The appearance and size of the man *329who made the deposits and plaintiff’s husband indicate that one was a very small man while the other was a very large, stout man. Plaintiff’s husband never lived at the rear of 18 West Peachtree Street, where the depositor was living when the account was opened. The expert handwriting evidence, as well as other evidence as to handwriting, demands a finding that the signatures of the depositor on the account signature cards and the admitted or known exemplar of plaintiff’s husband were made by different people. Plaintiff could not produce the pass, book (she had seen only one, according to her own testimony) though she claims to have had it in her possession at different times since the husband’s death. Indeed, when she discovered that there were two accounts, she asserted that both were in the same book—-a thing which banks and savings institutions never do.
How the trial judge reached the conclusion that these accounts were those of the plaintiff’s husband I do not know. But that is something in the nature of a jury verdict, the chemistry of which we rarely know.
I do not think the money belonged to plaintiff’s husband, or to her as his widow and heir. But I cannot say that there is not some evidence, small and to me incredible, that supports the judgment. And the "any evidence” rule, applies on appeal. Wiley, Parish & Co. v. Kelsey, 13 Ga. 223. Absent some error of law appearing in the course of the trial, we cannot disturb the judge’s findings and judgment.