Court Opinion

ID: 9849901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:49:07.430988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:28.174405
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
In this case the Court of Appeals is overruling a great number of recent cases, and holding in addition that it has no power to reverse the case presently before it although obvious error has been committed. It bases this conclusion *758on a sentence in Weinkle & Sons v. Brunswick & W. R. Co., 107 Ga. 367, 368 (33 SE 471) to the effect that, notwithstanding a new trial was granted on a single ground involving a question of law only, the appellate court may not reverse unless the verdict was required from both a legal and factual standpoint. In so doing it followed Southern R. Co. v. Higgins, 102 Ga. 586 (28 SE 785) which cited § 5585 of the Code of 1895, but ignored Code § 5483 of the same Code, which is presently designated Code § 70-208 and states that in all cases the court must exercise a sound legal discretion in the grant or refusal of new trials "according to the provisions of the common law and practice of the courts.”
The same constitutional provision which binds us to the precedents set by the Supreme Court creates the jurisdiction of this court for the correction of errors of law from the trial courts. Code Ann. § 2-3708. If a trial judge grants a new trial on a special ground only, and that ground erroneously decides a matter of law, it appears to me that this is an abuse of discretion under Code § 70-208 and that the appellate courts should not be precluded from saying so.
I agree, however, that we are bound by the cases above cited, which I hope the Supreme Court will see fit to overrule, as the law favors an end to needless litigation.