Court Opinion

ID: 9586772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:46.980466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:50.599056
License: Public Domain

Ebbrhardt, Judge,
dissenting. For two reasons I dissent.
Of necessity, plaintiff made out her case by way of circumstantial evidence. She offered no direct evidence to prove that her husband, the insured, died prior to the expiration of the policy at midnight, December 19, 1959. If there were no direct evidence showing that he was alive subsequently to midnight on that date, the circumstantial evidence here would be enough to authorize the verdict. But the defendant offered two witnesses who testified positively that they saw the insured alive after midnight on December 20. One of the witnesses, Ghandi, testified by written statement, that “The night of December 19, 1959, I saw Miller twice. I saw him about 6 p.m. and then I saw him again at 12 or 12:15 a.m. I am positive that I saw him in the hall or doorway after midnight. I was visiting with a friend I had just met, . . . but he had left and I was sitting at my desk writing Christmas cards when Miller spoke to me through the open door and said ‘Are you going to send me one?’ I said ‘yes,’ and then he went on. I was writing my last card at that time and after that I got ready for bed. I got in bed at 1 or 1:05 a.m. I looked at the clock before I got in bed. I am sure that Miller was still in the house when I went to bed. The reason I say that, I was left in charge of the house by Mrs. Brown, the owner, when she left town, and I made a point to see who was coming and going. In my opinion Miller left the house some time after 1 a.m. Sunday, 12-20-60.”
Vaught, the other witness, who was, like Ghandi and Miller, *570a roomer in the upstairs of the same house, testified that he also saw Miller about 6 p.m. on the evening of December 19, and then saw him again about 2:35 a.m. when Miller and another man, Thomas Moore, came “stomping up the stairs” and waked him from his sleep, when he got up- and went down the hall to the bathroom and saw Miller and Moore in their room preparing to eat something, that they offered him a drink, which he declined, and he went back to bed, after which he heard Miller and Moore talking, one asking the other what time it was, and the reply “It’s 15 minutes ’till three.” Vaught then turned on the light in his room and looked at his clock, verifying that it was “exactly 15 minutes ’till three.” Shortly after that Miller and Moore left the house.
They were not seen again until the following morning about 10 o’clock, when they were found dead, apparently from injuries received when the automobile in which they had been riding overturned into a stream. Each of them wore a wrist watch, and Miller’s was stopped at 4:10 while Moore’s was broken.
There was some testimony relative to a statement that Vaught had made in a telephone conversation on the afternoon before his testimony was taken in June concerning the state of the weather on the occasion when Miller had met his death back in December. When asked about the state of the weather Vaught had given the reply that it was “about like today,” and plaintiff’s attorney with whom Vaught had the conversation, contended that he had been questioning Vaught as to whether the weather was cold or not, while Vaught testified, when reminded of the conversation, that he had been referring to the matter of whether it had been clear or rainy. With his explanation, it would seem doubtful, though.: perhaps there may have been enought to support such if the jury found Vaught to have been impeached. But there was no effort made in any manner to impeach the testimony of Ghandi. While- there is an inconsistency in his statement in that at the beginning he says that he saw Miller on the night of December 19, 1959 at about 6 p.m. and again after midnight, and later in the statement says that in his opinion Miller left the house “after 1 a.m. Sunday, 12-20-60,” it is obvious that the last date was insexffed by *571inadvertence, for the statement itself was signed and dated May 5, 1960. Such an inadvertence is not enough to- result in an impeachment. There was no question as to the fact that Ghandi and Vaught were relating what they knew of the activities of Miller and Moore on the evening and night before they died, and no question that they were found dead on the morning of December 20, 1959. The important fact to which both were testifying, and to' which both testified positively, was that Miller and Moore were seen alive after midnight, December 19, 1959. And if Miller was alive after midnight, there should be no recovery, for the insurance policy expired on the stroke of midnight.
Since plaintiff’s case rested entirely upon circumstantial evidence while the defense was bottomed upon the positive, uncontradicted testimony—at least of Ghandi, if not of both Ghandi and Vaught—the verdict could not lawfully stand. The circumstantial evidence of the plaintiff did not demand a finding that Miller died prior to' midnight. It was merely consistent with the fact that he could have or may have died prior thereto. But the evidence of Ghandi that Miller was seen alive after midnight, consistent with the fact that Miller may have had rigor mortis when found the next morning about 10 a-.m., affirmatively showed that Miller did not die prior to midnight, when the policy expired. Frazier v. Ga. R. & Bkg. Co., 108 Ga. 807 (33 SE 996); Lankford v. Holton, 187 Ga 94 (200 SE 243), Myers v. Phillips, 197 Ga. 536, 542 (29 SE2d 700); Taggart v. Savannah Gas Co., 179 Ga. 181 (1) (175 SE 491); Neill v. Hill, 32 Ga. App. 381 (2) (123 SE 30); Emory University v. Bliss, 35 Ga. App. 752 (134 SE 637); McRae v. Wilby, 59 Ga. App. 401, 408 (1 SE2d 77). The motion for judgment non obstante veredicto was good and should have been sustained.
Ground 8 of the amended motion for new trial excepts to the following excerpt from the charge of the court: “I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that when witnesses appear either on the stand or by deposition they are presumed to speak the truth and are to be believed by the jury unless impeached in some manner provided by law or otherwise discredited in your judgment. I charge you that a witness may be impeached by *572disproving the facts testified to by him, by proof of contradictory statements previously made by him of matters relevant to his testimony and to the case. I charge you that when thus impeached, or sought to be, in either instance, a witness may be impeached by disproving the facts testified to> by him, and he may be corroborated by other testimony to the effect that the facts stated by him are true. Statements made out of court and not under oath are not evidence, but they are to be considered by you on the question of impeaching or discrediting the attacked witness. I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, when the credibility of the witness is attacked by an effort to impeach him and any of the methods pointed out by law which I have described to you, the jury then becomes the triers of the credibility of the witnesses sought to be impeached and of the witnesses or witness by whose testimony the attack is made. You are to weigh the opposing testimony of the witness sought to be impeached and, consequently give credit to that introduced by way of impeachment, or whether you will discredit the testimony introduced by way of impeachment and credit that of the witness attacked. In other words, it is the exclusive province of this jury to determine whether all the attendant circumstances and conditions and the evidence in the case as to whether a witness has riot or has been impeached. When a witness has been succesfully impeached by any of the legal methods, that is, where his unworthiness of credit is absolutely established in the minds of the jury, he ought not to be believed; and it is the duty of the jury to disregard his entire testimony unless it is corroborated, in which case you may believe the witness, it being a matter, of course, always for the jury to determine whether or not a witness has or has not been impeached.” The error assigned is: “Because it instructed the jury that William D. Vaught was impeached if he had merely mistakenly made a contradictory statement before his testimony, whei’eas the law is that the jury could not impeach William D. Vaught unless the contradictory statement had been wilfully and falsely made by him.” This assignment of error is meritorious and requires the grant of a new trial. Code §§ 38-1803, and 38-1806. When a judge undertakes to charge on the law relating to the *573impeachment of witnesses he must charge all of the law relative thereto which is material and applicable to the case. Ware v. State, 81 Ga. App. 762 (59 SE2d 753). A charge that authorizes a jury to impeach a witness (as to his testimony in toto) is error if the jury could find he had made a statement contradictory to his testimony by mistake. Sisk v. Landers, 67 Ga. App. 538 (5) (21 SE2d 449); Black & White Cab Co. v. Cowden, 64 Ga. App. 477 (13 SE2d 724).
Judge Townsend stated the correct rule in headnote 7 in Scoggins v. State, 98 Ga. App. 360 (106 SE2d 39), as follows: “Except in cases where a witness has sworn wilfully and knowingly falsely in the same case, the question of whether she has been successfully impeached as to part of her testimony so as to require that the whole of it be disregarded is for the jury, who may believe the testimony in part and disbelieve it in part ...” In this case the court charged:". . . When a witness has been successfully impeached by any of the legal methods, that is, where his unworthiness of credit is asbolutely established in the minds of the jury, he ought not to be believed; and it is the duty of the jury to disregard his entire testimony unless it is corroborated, in which case you may believe the witness, it being a matter, of course, always for the jury to determine whether or not a witness has or has not been impeached.” (Emphasis supplied). The vice in this charge is that it required the jury to disregard the entire testimony of witnesses who were impeached as to contradictory statements, whether the witnesses swore wilfully and intentionally falsely or not. Code § 38-1806.
I am authorized to say that Jordan, J., concurs in this dissent, and that Felton, C.J., and Carlisle, P.J., concur in the second division thereof.