110 Ga. 121 | Ga. | 1900
On October 17, 1896, the defendant in error filed her petition in the city court of Savannah, against the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company, for $20,000.00 damages, which she claims to have resulted from an injury she received on May 11, 1896, while a passenger on the company’s train. She alleged that the injury was caused by the car in which the petitionér was seated becoming derailed and thrown from the track of the railroad at or near a station in the county
Section 4334 of the Civil Code declares: “It is error for any or either of the judges of the superior courts of this State, in any case, whether civil or criminal, or in equity, during -its progress, or in his charge to the jury, to express or intimate his opinion as to what has or has not been proved,” etc. It will thus be seen that objectionable observations of a court touching what has been shown or established by the evidence are not confined to the charge of the court, as counsel for defendant in error seems to think, but it also includes improper remarks which are not called for by the question at issue, made during the progress of the trial, and even before the charge of the court to the jury has been commenced. In McCaffrey v. R. R., 69 Ga. 623, it was decided that it is not good practice for the court to say to counsel in the hearing of the jury, ruling upon the admissibility of testimony, “I reckon it is best to let it go for what it’s worth; perhaps we will understand it after awhile.” A new trial, however, was not granted on account of this observation, not because it would not have been sufficient ground for it had the case been a close one, as the one at bar; but it was simply decided that .under the facts of that case it was not sufficient to require a new trial. In the case of L. & N. Co. v. Tift, 100 Ga. 87 (5), it was decided that while overruling a motion to non-suit necessarily implies that in. the opinion of the judge the plaintiff may recover upon certain views of the evidence, and while he may within appropriate limits state in the hearing of fhe jury his reasons for the decision, he should not enter upon an extended and argumentative discussion of the merits of the case and in so doing intimate his opinion as to what the verdict should be. It was further ruled that error thus committed necessarily results in the grant of a new trial. In this connection counsel for defendant in error calls attention to the case of City of Atlanta v. Champe, 66 Ga. 663, in which Chief Justice Jackson, delivering the opinion of the.court, uses the following language: “In this case the plaintiff knew whether she suffered from her womb after this accident and not before, better than any doctor could, and, if entitled to credit and belief by the
There were other grounds in the motion for a new trial, but they are not of sufficient importance to require consideration by this court. Because of the errors herein indicated, the judgment of the court below is
Reversed.