Court Opinion

ID: 9561073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:02:21.02525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:31.115396
License: Public Domain

*570Whitman, Judge,
concurring specially. I concur in the opinion and judgment in this case with the following observations, modification and additions thereto:
1. Paragraph 10' of plaintiff’s petition alleges among other things as follows: “Plaintiff avers that defendant acted in bad faith by taking her automobile without cause, and since the taking has refused to return it to plaintiff.” Paragraph 10 of defendant’s demurrer demurred to and moved to strike the above quoted portion of Paragraph 10' “upon the ground that the said portion of said paragraph is vague and indefinite in that it fails to state the date and name of the person who, on behalf of this defendant, refused to return the said vehicle to plaintiff.” Plaintiff’s suit did not seek to recover any damages either actual or special or as exemplary damages in respect of the return of the automobile in question. (See Paragraph 8 and 9 of plaintiff’s petition.)
Paragraph 10 of defendant’s demurrer was properly overruled for the following reasons: (a) The allegations in Paragraph 10 of plaintiff’s petition had relation only to the recovery of attorney’s fee. This issue was eliminated from the case by the charge of the court that the plaintiff was not entitled to a recovery of attorney’s fee. (b) Defendant’s demurrer was directed against the entire quoted portion Of Paragraph 10 of plaintiff’s petition. The ground of the demurrer is in relation only to that portion of the allegations demurred to relating to the alleged refusal to return the automobile to the plaintiff. The demurrer does not have relation to the allegations in the quoted portion of said paragraph that the defendant acted in bad *571faith in taking her automobile without cause. The demurrer therefore was defective. Progressive Life Ins. Co. v. Poster, 98 Ga. App. 641 (106 SE2d 307), Haskin v. Carson, 113 Ga. App. 524 (149 SE2d 161), and cases cited.
2. Enumeration of error 3 (d) complains that by giving in charge at three different places in the instructions that portion of Code § 105-20Ó2 which provides the jury may award additional damages . . as compensation for the wounded feelings of the plaintiff,” the court gave undue emphasis to such contention as to this element of damages. ' One of the references is to a paragraph in the charge in respect of giving additional damages “either to deter the wrongdoer from repeating the trespass or as compensation for the wounded feelings of the plaintiff,” and the other reference is to a paragraph later given in the charge wherein’ in immediate sequence the same language was twice used. It does not appear likely that the jury was in any way misled or influenced by the alleged repetition and harmful error does not appear therefrom. Grasham v. Southern R. Co., 111 Ga. App. 158 (9), 163 (141 SE2d 189), and cases cited. See also Milledgeville Cotton Co. v. Bacon, 138 Ga. 470 (4) (75 SE 604); Hise v. Morgan, 91 Ga. App. 555 (5), 557 (86 SE2d 374).
3. Enumeration 4 contends that the court erred in overruling appellant’s motion for new trial as amended. Counsel for appellant in their brief in discussing the fourth enumeration in relation to the general grounds of the motion for new trial contend that by deducting from the valuation fixed by the appellee of her automobile repossessed by appellant, the net amount of the unpaid balance of purchase money thereon gives a net figure of only $719.01, as representing the interest of the appellee on April 13, 1966, the date of its repossession, and that when compared to the verdict in her favor in the amount of $3,500, the verdict is illegal and should be set aside.
In the case sub judice the evidence justified an award of punitive or exemplary damages. “In determining punitive or exemplary damages it is impossible to lay down any fixed rules for a precise mathematical calculation; ‘and in every such case the amount of the finding must be largely in the power of the jury, *572who have no other guide but their enlightened consciences.’ ” City Motor Exchange v. Ballinger, 110 Ga. App. 496, 497 (138 SE2d 925). To say, therefore, in such a case that a finding should have been less than a certain sum is to invade the peculiar province of the jury and to assume their functions.
Neither in the original motion for new trial nor in the amendment thereto is there any express or special ground that the amount of the verdict was excessive. Such a contention cannot be urged under the general grounds of a motion for new trial. McFarland v. Bradley, 82 Ga. App. 223 (4), 227 (60 SE2d 498), and cases cited; Georgia Power Co. v. Smith, 94 Ga. App. 166, 167 (94 SE2d 48). See also Pure Oil Co. v. Dukes, 107 Ga. App. 326, 328 (130 SE2d 234).
The verdict, therefore, is not erroneous on the ground of ex-cessiveness and should not be set aside on that ground.