Court Opinion

ID: 9575621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:15:30.247519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:18.230300
License: Public Domain

Pope, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from Division 2 of the majority opinion. Appellants’ first five enumerations of error address alleged deficiencies in the trial court’s instructions to the jury. The first enumeration of error asserts the trial court erred in failing to charge the jury on the measure of damages for appellee’s counterclaim for tortious interference with contractual relations between the appellee and his employees. The record reflects that the jury was instructed on the measure of damages for conversion of personal property but no instruction was given on the measure of damages on the tortious interference claim. Appellants expressly acquiesced to the instructions given by the trial court by stating, in response to inquiry at the conclusion of the charges, that they had no objection to the charges. However, I disagree with the majority that the appellants thus waived their right to object to the charge on appeal.
Pursuant to OCGA § 5-5-24, an appellant in a civil case may not complain of the failure to give instructions to the jury if no objection was made to the instructions before the jury returns its verdict unless, on appellate review, it appears that a substantial error was made in the charge which was harmful as a matter of law. Here, the charge was deficient as a matter of law. “Where several different elements of damages are claimed, it is error requiring the granting of a new trial for the judge to fail in his charge to the jury to give them any rule for estimating the damages claimed; and this is true notwithstanding no written request for such charge is made by the [appealing party].” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Southeastern Greyhound Lines v. Hancock, 71 Ga. App. 471, 473-474 (31 SE2d 59) (1944). Because the jury was given no instruction on the measure of damages for one of the theories of recovery alleged in the counterclaim, I conclude that the failure amounted to error as a matter of law even though the ap*614pellants failed to request such a charge and stated they had no objection to the charges given as a whole.
Decided July 11, 1990
Rehearing denied July 30, 1990 — Cert, applied for.
Davidson & Fuller, Stephen P. Fuller, for appellants.
Michael J. Anderson, for appellee.
Those cases in which the appellate courts have held that OCGA § 5-5-24 (c) does not preserve the issue for appeal, when the appellant specifically acquiesced to the charge, have involved instances in which the objection related to the giving of a particular instruction and not to the failure to give instruction. See Irvin v. Oliver, 223 Ga. 193 (2) (154 SE2d 217) (1967); Brown v. Garcia, 154 Ga. App. 837 (1) (270 SE2d 63) (1980). In fact, in both these cases, the record shows a discussion was held between the trial judge and counsel for appellant on the specific charge which was later made an issue on appeal and the counsel acquiesced to the giving of that particular charge. Here, counsel merely made a blanket response of “no objection” to the trial court’s inquiry at the conclusion of the instructions as a whole. An inquiry as to whether the parties have any objection to the charge is almost universally made by trial judges at the conclusion of their instructions to the jury. By holding that a negative response to that question (as opposed to positive acquiescence to a particular charge, as in the cases cited above) will preclude an appeal on a charge that is deficient as a matter of law, the majority, I believe, has left OCGA § 5-5-24 (c) with no purpose or meaning.
I agree that the remaining four enumerations of error relating to the charge to the jury have no merit. Appellants failed to raise an objection to these charges at trial and since, unlike the first enumeration of error, these remaining enumerations of error do not involve charges which are erroneous as a matter of law, then objection to them is waived and we may not review these charges pursuant to OCGA § 5-5-24 (c).
I am authorized to state that Judge Sognier and Judge Cooper join in this dissent.