Court Opinion

ID: 9625808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:51:32.711617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:15.613195
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
dissenting. Plaintiff sued defendant for an amount alleged to be due under a contract; defendant answered and alleged that the parties "had a reserve contract before, during and after the transaction sued upon and that plaintiff has never given an accounting therefor and that plaintiff is indebted to defendant.” He prayed that plaintiff be required to "give unto defendant a full accounting of all sums owed to him under said reserve contract,” and demanded judgment in his favor.
After discovery, the case was tried before the court and a jury, and at the conclusion of the evidence, the trial judge directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the amount claimed in the complaint. Defendant filed a motion for new trial, which was overruled, and he now appeals to this court.
1. The majority opinion affirms the trial judge in its direction of a verdict. I disagree. The direction of a verdict is proper only when there is no conflict in the evidence as to any material issue, and when the evidence introduced, with all reasonable deductions, demands a verdict. Code Ann. § 81A-150 (a) (§ 50, CPA; Ga. L. 1966, pp. 609, 656; 1967, pp. 226, 237, 246, 248); State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Snyder, 125 Ga. App. 352 (187 SE2d 878); Isom v. Schettino, 129 Ga. App. 73.
2. In considering a motion for directed verdict, all of the evidence and all inferences arising therefrom must be construed most favorably toward the party opposing the grant of motion for directed verdict. Sellers v. Wolverine Soap Co., 19 Ga. App. 295 (1) (91 SE 489); McCarty v. National Life &c. Ins. Co., 107 Ga. App. 178, 179 (129 SE2d 408).
3. The majority opinion contends that defendant’s evidence debars his right to recover in that when asked if he could testify as to any amount of reserve with Commercial Credit, he answered "No specific amount, no.” But this was a suit for an accounting. Defendant testified that he and plaintiff had a contract for a *299reserve fund to be set aside by plaintiff for defendant, depending on the number of "deals” he made each month for plaintiff, and that offcen-times there were twenty deals made each month (Tr. 22); that he had never received the correct amount due him (Tr. 23); that he could not testify as to the specific amount due him in the reserve fund (Tr. 31). He testified that his own books and records were lost or destroyed.
Under these circumstances, defendant’s failure to testify as to the specific amount due him by plaintiff in no way authorizes a directed verdict against him. A suit for an accounting implies the lack of knowledge as to the exact amount due and may be brought at law as well as in equity. Guarantee Trust &c. Co. v. Dickson, 148 Ga. 311 (96 SE 561); Peeples v. Peeples, 193 Ga. 358, 365 (18 SE2d 629); McDonough Const. Co. v. Ormewood Apts., 212 Ga. 620 (1) (94 SE2d 733). If defendant had known the exact amount due it would not have been necessary to resort to a suit for an accounting. The very purpose of a suit for an accounting is to have it determined as to the exact amount due, because the party himself does not know the exact amount due, and it is necessary usually to consider a number of transactions and figures in order for a fact-finding body (an auditor or a jury) to arrive at the amount due. So long as something is due, even though the party does not know how much, this is the proper basis for a suit for an accounting. Gould v. Barrow, 117 Ga. 458 (43 SE 702); Bowman v. Chapman, 179 Ga. 49 (2) (175 SE 241).
4. The defendant Andrews sought to introduce a receipt for one transaction which would have substantiated his contention for a nominal amount but that this receipt did not become a part of the transcript because on objection the court declined to admit it into evidence. This very point has been before the Appellate Courts of Georgia several times, and it has been held repeatedly that where the trial court rejects material and admissible evidence offered by a party, it is error to thereafter direct a verdict against that party. Proctor & Gamble Co. v. Blakely Oil Co., 128 Ga. 606 (1) (57 SE 879); Fountain v. Hagan &c. Mfg. Co., 140 Ga. 70 (2) (78 SE 423); Thompson v. Central of Ga. R. Co., 102 Ga. App. 5 (2) (115 SE2d 471).
5. The majority opinion contends that the burden is on the defendant to present evidence to the jury in such manner that the jury may calculate the amount without guesswork, and cites Lansdale Clothes, Inc. v. Wright, 217 Ga. 817 (2) (125 SE2d 502); Williams & Templeton v. Brewer, 93 Ga. App. 603 (1) (92 SE2d 586); *300Thomas v. Campbell, 126 Ga. App. 675 (3) (191 SE2d 619). Those cases do not support the premise contended for by the majority opinion. The Lansdale case is one where defendant admitted a prima facie case in the plaintiff. Brewer is a suit for illegal cutting of timber by trespassers; and Thomas is where the defendant (tenant) counterclaimed for the specific dollar amount that the rental property had been reduced, but offered no evidence to support such allegation. Clearly these cases are inapplicable. In a suit for an accounting perhaps the jury knows exactly what items and figures it allows, and which ones it disallows, in arriving at the money-value of the verdict; still to the on-looker perhaps it may appear that some slight "guesswork” is involved along the route between presentation of evidence and arrival at the final verdict.
6. Finally, in this case, defendant testified that there was an agreement between him and plaintiff whereby plaintiff was to set up a reserve fund for defendant, based on the number of transactions (deals) per month that defendant completed for plaintiff. Plaintiff denied the existence of such agreement. This itself constitutes an issue which could be solved only by a jury; not by the trial judge in directing a verdict. Further, defendant testified that "over the period of a year from 1967-1968 and 1969 at one particular time I was giving them twenty deals a month” and that it was $29.51 and $29.52 credit for a "short deal” (Tr. 22); and that this went on through the year 1968 and into 1969 (Tr. 24). W. A. Wilhelm, witness for plaintiff, and who was an official of plaintiff corporation, testified that a certain document called "Dealer’s copy” was mailed to the dealer for his records, and in the lower left hand corner it bore the caption "Dealer Reserve,” and written thereunder was "Regular Twenty-nine Dollars and fifty-one cents...” and that he assumed it was sent to Mr. Andrews (defendant) (Tr. 14). Construing this testimony most favorably to defendant — as must be done in considering a motion for directed verdict — it shows at least two years of transactions (deals) at approximately twenty deals per month — at approximately $29.52 per deal, which would have amounted to a credit reserve in favor of defendant of approximately $13,169.60, which is considerably in excess of the amount plaintiff sued for. All of this evidence most certainly should have been considered by the jury on the question of accounts, instead of the trial judge’s directing a verdict for plaintiff.
I, therefore, would reverse the trial court in directing a verdict for plaintiff and dissent from the majority opinion.