Court Opinion

ID: 9826728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 16:28:35.931346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:13.533548
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
By a petition to rehear, our attention is for the first time directed to the fact that the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict was not couched in general terms but purported to specify the particular ground on which it rested, that being in substance that the fatal injury was not effected by accidental means, with no reference to the other ground upon which we sustained the motion.
The rule is that where the motion is not couched in general terms but undertakes to specify the particular grounds upon which it is based, the movant upon an appeal in error is confined to that ground. Tennessee Central Ry. Co. v. Zearing, 2 Tenn. App., 451, and cases cited.
In the present case, however, the failure of the trial judge to direct a verdict for the defendant was made a ground of the motion for a new trial, and the theory as there stated is sufficient to cover that upon which this court acted. It would seem therefore, upon a casual consideration, that the defendant should be entitled to urge that ground in the appellate court on the theory that while the attention of the trial judge was not originally directed to that particular ground, it was so directed in connection with the motion for a new trial and acted on.
Upon reflection, however, the fallacy of this view is apparent. The reason for the rule confining the movant to the ground originally specified is that, had new grounds been seasonably stated, the trial “court could then have permitted plaintiff, and it. would have been his duty to have permitted plaintiff, upon a proper showing, to introduce testimony to” supply the deficiency in the evidence pointed out by the motion. Lawson v. Producers’ & Refiners’ Corp., 157 Tenn., 455, 9 S. W. (2d), 1026, 1027.
The rule being bottomed upon this reason, obviously the spirit of its requirements could not be met by incorporating in the motion for a new trial a ground of the motion for a directed verdict that was not specified as a basis of that motion when originally made upon the trial.
The result is that the petition to rehear is granted to the extent that the former judgment sustaining the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict is recalled.
However, for the reasons stated in the opinion originally filed, the trial judge was in error in directing a verdict for the plaintiff at the conclusion of all the evidence and rendering judgment thereon. The ground of the motion for a new trial challenging this action should have been sustained and a new trial granted. This *468will be done here. Let a judgment be entered reversing the judgment of the circuit court and remanding the case for a new trial.
S'enter and Ketchum, JJ., concur.