Court Opinion

ID: 9623015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:26:41.184184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:02.158532
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring specially. While I must agree that the cases cited in the opinion fully support the conclusion reached, my own view of the matter is better expressed by Justice Simmons in O’Neill Mfg. Co. v. Pruitt, 110 Ga. 577 (36 SE 59), a case in which plaintiff’s counsel undertook to show by a witness that if the defendant were held liable for the injury, an insurance company would pay the verdict. Justice Simmons observed: “While the court did all that could be done to disabuse [the jury] of this impression, it must still have lingered in their minds. The most effectual way to stop such conduct on the part of counsel [or of a witness who deliberately injects the matter of insurance into a trial] is for the trial judge to grant a mistrial, whenever it occurs and a motion for a mistrial is made.” P. 579. When we assume that the prejudices of a jury, inherently existing when the matter is injected, can be effectively erased by an admonition to disregard it or even *230by a rebuke of counsel or of the witness, we do as the ostrich which, seeking to escape the fury of a sandstorm, buries its head in the sand and pretends that the storm is no longer present. In the interest of fair trials it should be kept out.