Court Opinion

ID: 9579624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:56:49.093933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:37.985655
License: Public Domain

On Motion tor Rehearing.
It is insisted by plaintiffs in error on motion for rehearing that, irrespective of the merits of the assignments of error in this case, this court must reverse the judgment of the trial court and order a new trial because the companion case of Thomas v. Barnett, brought by the joint defendants in the trial court, has been reversed on a special ground of the amended motion for new trial and a new trial granted to those defendants. The movants argue in this respect that the trial jury by returning a joint verdict against all defendants found them to be joint tortfeasors and that under the decision of the Supreme Court in Southeastern Truck Lines, Inc. v. Rann, 214 Ga. 813, 817 (108 SE2d 561), “. . . a verdict and judgment rendered against two or more joint tortfeasors is single and indivisible, and must stand or . . . fall in toto.”
This position is unavailing to the movants under the record before the court. While a joint verdict and judgment was rendered against the defendants Smith and the defendants Thomas in the trial court, the two sets of defendants separated the case on appeal by filing separate motions for new trial based on different grounds, and separate bills of exceptions; and the defendants Smith cannot now in this court seek to rely on assignments of error made by the defendants Thomas in their case which were not made by them in the present case. Nor can they secure a reversal of this case by this court on issues not raised and passed upon in the trial court. The ruling in the Bann case, as in the other cases cited therein, was predicated upon appropriate action being initiated in the trial court (in that ease a joint motion by the defendants to set aside the verdict and judgment and a joint appeal from the order denying the same). In our opinion the *854principle of law that a joint verdict against joint tortfeasors is single and indivisible and must stand or fall in toto is unavailing in the absence of the pursuance of appropriate remedies in the trial court to effectuate the same.

Motion for rehearing denied.