Court Opinion

ID: 9850504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:58:25.622646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:38.281564
License: Public Domain

Pannbll, Judge,
dissenting. Appellee made a motion to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that the enumeration of error was too vague and indefinite and insufficient to present any question for review. Under the prior procedure, where specific assignments of error were necessary, it is doubtful if the enumeration of error would have been sufficient to meet the standards then required. However, under the Appellate Practice Act of 1965 the enumeration of error is sufficient to present a question for decision if the appeal is properly before this court. There is no question but that the direction of a verdict is a reviewable judgment; however, a jurisdictional question is presented as to whether an appeal from, or based on, the direction of a verdict rather than the judgment entered thereon is authorized by the Appellate Practice Act of 1965> as amended.
Under the prior practice, if a bill of exceptions contained any assignment of error on an appealable judgment, generally other reviewable assignments of error would be passed on by the appellate court. Under the Appellate Practice Act assignments of error are abolished as well as bills of exception; the appeal therefore must be based on or from a judgment which will support the appeal as provided in the Act, and the enumeration of error on an appealable judgment would not neces- • sarily make the appeal good. There is no enumeration of error on an appealable judgment in the present case, nor is the appeal *862from a judgment, ruling, or order from which an appeal is authorized under the Appellate Practice Act.
The appeal should be dismissed in the present case irrespective of the effect of Sec. 18B of the Appellate Practice Act of 1965 (Ga. L. 1965, pp. 18, 32) and irrespective of the decisions relied upon by the majority. These decisions (Mullis v. McCook, 185 Ga. 171 (194 SE 171); Scarborough v. Holder, 127 Ga. 256 (56 SE 293); McKenzie v. Consolidated Lumber Co., 142 Ga. 375 (4) (82 SE 1062); Winter Inc. v. Peoples Bank of Calhoun, 166 Ga. 385 (2) (143 SE 387); De LaPerriere v. Herrmann & Henican, 41 Ga. App. 60 (2) ( 151 SE 813)) and others like them (Duggan v. Monk, 5 Ga. App. 206 (62 SE 1017); Meeks v. Meeks, 5 Ga. App. 394 (63 SE 270); Legere v. Blakely Gin Co., 11 Ga. App. 325 (75 SE 163); Copeland v. Gilbert, 24 Ga. App. 387 (100 SE 775); Taylor v. Reese, 108 Ga. 379 (33 SE 917); State of Georgia v. McGuire, 76 Ga. App. 596, 597 (46 SE2d 774); Arnold v. Selman, 83 Ga. App. 145 (1) (62 SE2d 915)) are all based on the Act of 1898 (Ga. L. 1898, p. 92; § 6-804 of the Code of 1933) or are based on decisions predicated on said Act, even though some of the latter decisions do not cite the Act but cite only the prior decisions. Code § 6-804, a codification of the Act of 1898, was expressly repealed by Sec. 21 of the Appellate Practice Act of 1965. This repealed Code section reads as follows: “In any case where the judgment, decree, or verdict necessarily has been controlled by one or more rulings, orders, decisions, or charges of the court, and the losing party desires to except to such judgment, decree, or verdict, and to assign error on the ruling, order, decision, or charge of the court, it shall not be necessary to make a motion for new trial, nor file a brief of the evidence, but the party complaining shall be permitted to present a bill of exceptions containing only so much of the evidence or statement of facts as may be necessary to enable the appellate court to clearly understand the ruling, order, decision, or charge complained of.” (Emphasis supplied.) To illustrate the point I quote in full Division 1 of the opinion in Scarborough v. Holder, 127 Ga. 256 (1), supra, cited by the majority, and by this court as authority for the ruling in De LaPerriere v. Herrmann & Heni*863can, 41 Ga. App. 60, supra: “[a] motion was made to dismiss the bill of exceptions, on the ground that it contained no assignment of error upon any final verdict or judgment in the case. This is a direct bill of exceptions in a case in which a verdict was directed by the court, and error is assigned upon various rulings made pendente lite, as well as upon the direction of a verdict. The bill of exceptions recites: 'Defendant’s counsel then and there moved the court to direct a verdict for the defendant for the premises in dispute, which motion was granted and a verdict directed by the court for the premises in dispute. To which ruling by the court plaintiff then and there excepted, and now excepts and assigns the same as error, and says that the ruling of the court in directing said verdict for the defendant is contrary to law, contrary to evidence and without evidence to support it.’ In Montgomery v. Reynolds, 124 Ga. 1053, upon the authority of the cases cited in the first headnote, it was ruled that a direct bill of exceptions to a ruling made pendente lite, which does not assign error upon any final judgment, will not be entertained by this court. In none of the cases cited nor in the main case was the question made or decided that under the Act of December 20, 1898, a direct bill of exceptions to a pendente lite ruling would lie without assigning error upon a verdict. That Act provides: In 'any case now or hereafter brought, where the judgment, decree, or verdict has necessarily been controlled by one or more rulings, orders, decisions, or charges of the court, and the losing party desires to except to such judgment, decree, or verdict, and to assign error on the ruling, order, decision, or charge of the court, it shall not be necessary to make a motion for new trial, nor file a brief of the evidence, but the party complaining shall be permitted to present a bill of exceptions containing only so much of the evidence or statement of facts as may be necessary to enable the Supreme Court to clearly understand the ruling, decision, or charge complained of.’ Acts of 1898, p. 92. Where a verdict has been necessarily controlled by a ruling of the court, the losing party is given the right to except to such verdict and assign error on the ruling of the court without making a motion for a new trial *864and without filing complete brief of the evidence; all that the complaining party is required to include in his bill of exceptions is so much of the evidence or statement of facts as may be necessary to enable the Supreme Court to clearly understand the ruling complained of. One of the rulings complained of in the present case is the direction of a verdict; this, of course, is a controlling ruling. The plaintiff in error, under the Act of 1898, was given the privilege of bringing this controlling ruling to the Supreme Court for review by a direct bill of exceptions, complaining that the verdict was necessarily controlled thereby. The difficulty in the case is whether there has been any exception taken to the verdict in the assignment of error. When the court directed the jury to return a particular verdict, the jury was bound to return that verdict and none other. The writing of the verdict at the instance of the court was, in effect, the act of the court; and when the bill of exceptions assigns error upon the ruling of the court in directing a particular verdict, as being contrary to law, contrary to evidence, and without evidence to support it, in legal contemplation this is an exception to the verdict itself. Therefore, construing the assignment of error upon the direction of the verdict as being an assignment of error upon the verdict, we hold that there is an exception taken to the verdict which brings this case under the provisions of the Act of 1898, and we will inquire whether the controlling ruling complained of was correct or not.” (Emphasis supplied.) The case of McKenzie’s Sons & Co. v. Consolidated Lumber Co., 142 Ga. 375 (4) (82 SE 1062) follows the Scarborough case and cites as additional authority the case of Potts-Thompson Liquor Co. v. Potts, 135 Ga. 453, 465 (11) (69 SE 734), which cited the Scarborough case as authority and also Brown v. Conner, 141 Ga. 622 (81 SE 901) which latter case merely held that an assignment of error on the direction of a verdict on the ground that “there was nothing upon which to base that verdict” was sufficiently definite. In this latter case, there was an assignment of error on the judgment entered on the verdict which supported the bill of exceptions. Reviewability and not appealability was involved there. An examination of the record in the case of Mullis v. McCook, *865185 Ga. 171, supra, discloses there is an assignment of error on the judgment entered on the verdict. The case of Winter Inc. v. Peoples Bank of Calhoun, 166 Ga. 385 (2), supra, cites the Scarborough and McKenzie cases as well as Duggan v. Monk, 5 Ga. App. 206 (62 SE 1017). The Duggan case cited as authority Lyndon v. Ga. R. &c. Co., 129 Ga. 353 (58 SE 1047), in which latter case the judgment on the verdict was excepted to as well as the ruling of the trial judge directing the verdict, the ruling being only that the assignment of error on the direction of the verdict was sufficient to present the question for decision. Reviewability, not appealability was involved. Other cases discussing the Act of 1898 (§ 6-804 of the Code of 1933) and basing the right to appeal such a ruling as that appealed in the present case on said Act are Taylor v. Reese, 108 Ga. 379, supra; Wright v. Hollywood Cemetery Corp., 112 Ga. 884 (38 SE 94, 52 LRA 621); and Webb v. Hicks, 117 Ga. 335 (43 SE 738).
A search for the parentage of all of these cases leads inevitably to the Act of 1898, and the Code section codifying the Act having been repealed, the cases based thereon no longer are legitimate or valid as authority in the absence of the statute.
We agree with the majority that the Appellate Practice Act of 1965, as amended, should be liberally construed so as to avoid dismissals when possible, but in the pursuit of this desirable goal, expressed by all, we cannot ignore the plain language of the statute as it now exists, and particularly when the very language which would have authorized an appeal from an order directing a verdict has been expressly repealed, and nothing enacted to take its place except the phrase from Sec. 23, lifted out of context, and quoted by the majority as a mandate of the General Assembly. This court should not encroach upon the prerogatives of the legislature or exercise legislative powers by adding provisions to accomplish an expressed general purpose of the legislature when as to the matter involved (here an appeal from an order directing a verdict) the legislature has spoken effectively to the contrary by eliminating the very foundations for such an appeal. The law is clear that there can no longer be an appeal from a verdict (Interstate Fire Ins. *866Co. v. Chattam, 222 Ga. 436 (150 SE2d 618)), and an appeal from a ruling of the trial judge directing a verdict can no longer be considered as an appeal from a verdict.
The majority have called attention to no portion of the Appellate Practice Act which authorizes an appeal from an order directing a verdict. There is no such language. I am, therefore, constrained to the view that the appeal should be dismissed.