Court Opinion

ID: 9577436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:34:58.753013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:36.917452
License: Public Domain

Felton, Chief Judge,
dissenting. Ground 7 of the amended motion for a new trial complains of the following charge: “As has been stated gentlemen, there has already been a verdict and judgment rendered against defendant Miller in this case and if you should believe by a preponderance of the evidence that defendants, Georgia Power Company and Silas G. Gurley, are also liable in the case, you would render a verdict against them, and the judgment of the court based on your verdict will comply with the law with reference to contribution between the defendants, if a verdict is rendered against these defendants who are now before you.” The assignment of error is as follows: “Movant contends that this portion of the charge was prejudicial and harmful to him and was error of such a nature as to demand a new trial in that said charge was erroneous and Was not sound as an abstract principle of law; and that it failed in this paragraph and elsewhere in the charge to also' charge that there had also been a verdict and judgment rendered against defendants Georgia Power Company and Gurley and that said judgment, against all defendants, including Miller, had been reversed by the Court of Appeals and was then void and of no effect as to any of the defendants; and that it was error to charge, by implication, that movant had a then existing, valid and binding judgment against defendant Miller, when, in fact, the judgment rendered against all parties defendant on the first trial of the case had been reversed on appeal; and that said portion of the charge was error in that it removed from the jury’s consideration the question of whether or not defendant Miller was negligent and liable to movant for the damages suffered by him and had the effect of converting movant’s suit against joint tortfeasors into an action by George W. Miller against Georgia Power Company and Silas G. Gurley for contribution to pay a judgment against all defendants that had been reversed by the Court of Appeals, and, in fact, did not then exist.” My opinion is that the above exception is based on the sole contention that a new trial was granted to defendant Miller as well as to the Georgia Power Company and Silas G. Gurley. If I am wrong about that *49construction I cannot conceive how the charge relating to contribution could possibly have been harmful because the court did not state what his judgment would provide if the jury found against the defendants then involved. As to the question of contribution there was no proposition of law charged upon. The charge was not harmful for any reason assigned.