Court Opinion

ID: 9854715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:12:30.199462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:17.988239
License: Public Domain

Carley, Judge,
concurring specially.
This case presents a situation wherein the principle of law requiring that jurors make their decision solely upon the evidence adduced at trial conflicts directly with the principle of law that a juror may not be heard to impeach his own verdict. Unfortunately, the cases seem to inflexibly declare that the former must yield to the latter. In my opinion, this is especially perplexing in the case at bar because, unlike any of the previous decisions which I have been able to find, the trial judge in this case granted the motion for new trial. However, since the trial court granted the motion on a special ground, we have no alternative but to review the enumerations of errors of law. Smith v. Telecable of Columbus, 238 Ga. 559 (234 SE2d 24) (1977). Also, the misconduct of the jurors in this case was, in my opinion, egregious and in all probability greatly affected the deliberations and verdict of the jury. Nevertheless, after thorough research and study I can find no basis for an applicable exception to the proscription of impeachment of a verdict by jurors and, therefore, I am constrained to concur with the majority.
Appellee has raised one argument in support of the trial court’s grant of the motion for new trial which is not discussed in the majority opinion and which I believe should be addressed, although the case law seems to require that this contention also be resolved adversely to the appellee. In this connection, appellee points out that, in addition to the affidavit of one juror and the testimony of another, the trial court also had before it the affidavit of the attorney to whom the remarks concerning juror misconduct were made. Thus, appellee asserts that the trial court could have based its finding of juror misconduct upon adequate competent evidence which was untainted by the jurors’ attempt to impeach their own verdict. “ [This] evidence was entirely hearsay, and purported to be the sayings of a juror whose verdict movant sought to set aside ... ‘if a verdict may not be *278impeached by an affidavit of one or more of the jurors who found it, certainly it cannot be impeached by affidavits from third persons, establishing the utterance by a juror of remarks tending to impeach his verdict. The affidavit of [an attorney] that some of the jurors told him the verdict was caused by [misconduct] furnishes no cause to set it aside.’ ” Ward v. Morris, administrator, 159 Ga. 526 (126 SE 291) (1924). Accordingly, I believe that we have no alternative but to reverse the trial court’s grant of appellee’s motion for new trial.