Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia; November 8, 1974; Georgia; State Appellate Court
Defendant Anna Shannon appeals a verdict in favor of plaintiff Karl Kaylor from a personal injury case stemming from a three-car accident. The appeal includes challenging the trial court's denial of a motion for mistrial after a police officer referred to Shannon as "the one giving probable cause to the accident," without a jury instruction to disregard this remark. The officer initially drew a diagram and explained the accident dynamics, but his labeling of vehicles caused confusion, leading to a correction during his testimony. After the officer's comment, Shannon's counsel moved for a mistrial but did not object immediately, which the court interpreted as a waiver of the objection. The court concluded that unless the remark was egregiously prejudicial, it would not overturn the denial of the mistrial. Additionally, Shannon requested a charge regarding witness credibility, emphasizing that if a witness is successfully contradicted, their reliability should be determined by the jury, and if a witness is found to have willfully lied, their testimony should be disregarded unless corroborated. The court's handling of both the mistrial motion and the jury instruction request were affirmed as appropriate.
The refusal of the requested jury charge by the defendant is identified as an error, as it was based on a provision from Code 38-1806. The jury could have found that the plaintiff knowingly testified falsely, but there was no evidence in the record to impeach the plaintiff's character for truthfulness. The distinction between general bad character and truthfulness is highlighted, indicating that the previous ruling regarding witness credibility was not applicable in this case. A request for jury instructions must be correct and applicable; any inaccuracies warrant denial. Since the problematic portion of Code 38-1806 was not relevant here, the court's refusal to charge it verbatim was appropriate.
Regarding the second enumeration of error, the trial court's allowance of a medical witness to testify based on a hypothetical question is upheld despite the defendant's claim that the underlying assumptions were unproven. The jury's role in determining the truth of those facts is reinforced, indicating that the question of whether the facts were established belonged to the jury. This reasoning is similarly applied to the fourth enumeration concerning the expert's opinion on disability, which is also rejected.
The trial court's instructions on negligence per se concerning the defendant were deemed correct, and the defendant's claim for additional instructions regarding other drivers was rejected, as the absence of those additional instructions does not undermine the correctness of the existing charge.
Lastly, the jury's $35,000 verdict is not considered excessive to the point of indicating bias or caprice. The jury was entitled to reject the defendant's argument regarding the plaintiff's pre-existing health conditions and the compensation offer previously made by the plaintiff that was rejected by the defendant does not justify a new trial.
Remaining enumerations do not demonstrate harmful error warranting a new trial, leading to an affirmation of the judgment. Judge Evans concurs specially, addressing enumeration of error six related to the trial judge's jury instruction that a violation of Georgia law by the defendant, Miss Shannon, could imply negligence per se. The defendant objected, claiming the instruction did not extend to the drivers of the other vehicles involved. Although this objection initially seemed valid, it was undermined by the fact that the defendant had dismissed her third-party action against one driver and the other driver was in default. Consequently, the objection regarding the charge's applicability was deemed meritless.
In the motion for rehearing, it is argued that the case Pelham, Havana R. Co. v. Elliott, indicated that general bad character could be impeached through prior contradictory statements, thus necessitating a verbatim charge on this point. However, the court clarifies that Code 38-1804 outlines the specific method for proving general bad character, which differs from impeachment via prior contradictory statements as per Code 38-1803. The court emphasizes that the provisions for impeaching a witness's general character are distinct and should not be conflated with other types of impeachment. The court correctly instructed the jury on impeachment through factual discrepancies and prior contradictory statements, as no evidence was presented for impeaching any witness based on general bad character. The court will not follow Pelham to the extent it contradicts established principles, and the judgment is upheld.
