Court Opinion

ID: 9572506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:42:19.465354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:17.434546
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
“ ‘Where the evidence on motion for summary judgment is ambiguous or doubtful, the party opposing the motion must be given the benefit of all reasonable doubts and of all favorable inferences and such evidence construed most favorably to the party opposing the motion.’ ” Burnette Ford v. Hayes, 227 Ga. 551 (181 SE2d 866) (1971). An exception to this rule has been established in Chambers v. Citizens &c. Nat. Bank, 242 Ga. 498, 502 (249 SE 2d 214) (1978), where it affirmatively appears that the party is “ ‘intentionally or deliberately self-contradictory; and if he is so, the courts are fully justified in taking against him that version of his testimony which is most unfavorable to him.’ ”
In the case at hand the testimony of McCray contained in an interrogatory was that she exercised control and supervision over the use of the vehicle involved in the collision.
This is contradictory to her other testimony and should be construed most favorably to the party opposing the motion for summary judgment. It does not seem plain and palpable as a matter of law that the contradictory testimony of McCray was intentional or deliberate.
The words of Judge Russell in Davis v. Kirkland, 1 Ga. App. 5, 6 (58 SE 209) (1907) seem applicable. “After the legal battle lines have, by the permission of the judge, moved from the skirmishing of the pleadings into full action and real conflict between contending statements of fact, he is transformed into a mere representative of a neutral power, friendly alike to both belligerents, — the law, — who will see that there is no violation of those rules of war, enforced by law, and that neither combatant shall smuggle or receive from the *513territories of law any contraband of war in the form of illegal evidence ... Since the birth of Magna Charta, — one of law’s leading citizens, — whenever internal dissension or revolution arises in the territory of evidence, to determine which contending faction shall be entitled to the jewel truth, she calls in, as sole arbiter to settle the dispute, jury, who under law’s irrevocable appointment shall settle, in every nook and corner of law’s protectorate, — the domain of facts, — all issues, great and small. The wisdom of all men most enlightened, the experience of those most familiar with the practice, the innate sense of justice, all concur in the opinion that disputes between such varying and variable characters as visit and inhabit the domain of facts can not be satisfactorily adjusted and finally determined by any umpire more absolutely reliable and just than the jury.”
Judge Bleckley is also correct when he says in Central R. Co. v. Ferguson, 63 Ga. 83, 85 (1879): “The evidence is not conclusive. It pushes the mind into that great pit-fall called doubt, and there leaves it. The jury are the best doctors of doubt that we know of.”
In any event the trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion for summary judgment. I would affirm,
í I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray concurs in this dissent.