This case was before this court in
Kittles v. Kittles,
1. In their first and fourth enumerations оf error, the executors contend the trial court erred in allowing evidence of estate debts which existed after the widow filed her petition for year’s support and, in their third enumeration of error, the executors argue that the trial court erred in allowing evidence of the widow’s current medical expenses. They argue that such evidence was irrelevant.
“Evidence must relate to the questions being tried by the jury and bear upon them either directly or indirectly.” OCGA § 24-2-1. However, “[admissibility of evidence is a matter which rests largely within the sound discretion of the trial court, and if an item of evidence has a tendency to help establish a fact in issue, that is sufficient to make it relevant and admissible.
Alexander v. State,
In the case sub judice, one оf the issues before the jury was the amount of year’s support the widow was entitled to recover. The amount of year’s support is “to be determined using the criteriа established in subsection (c) of [OCGA § 53-5-2] and keeping in view also the solvency of the estate.” (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 53-5-2 *538 (b). Subsection (c) (2) of this Code section provides that other “criteria as the court deems equitable and proper” is relevant to the amount of the widow’s year’s support. From this perspective, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing evidence of estate debts and in allowing evidence of the widow’s current medical expenses as this evidence was relevant to the estate’s “solvency” and to determining the amount needed by the widow for year’s support.
2. In their second enumeration of error, the executors contend the trial court erred in allowing the widow to testify “regarding her alleged ministrations to the decedent during his last illness, the nature and types of such illness, the length of such illness, and her inability to get help from [the executors].” While such testimony seems to bear little, if any, relevance to the issues before the jury, i.e., whether the executors deliberately and intentionally failed to sаtisfy debts against the estate for the sole purpose of preventing the widow from exercising her claim to a year’s support and, if so, the amount of year’s suрport the widow is entitled to receive, we recognize that “ ‘[o]ur appellate courts have consistently adhered to the rule that an objection tо the admission of evidence on the sole ground that it is “irrelevant” is insufficient to show error requiring reversal. (Cits.) . . .’
Jefferson v. State,
3. Next, it is argued that thе trial court erred in allowing the widow’s attorney to cross-examine executor William H. Kittles regarding the estate’s defense to the widow’s petition for a second year’s support. In this regard executor William H. Kittles affirmed on cross-examination that he authorized the estate’s attorney to argue that the executors’ mоtives in failing to pay estate debts is irrelevant to the widow’s claim for a year’s support.
“Although the scope of the cross-examination is not unlimited every pаrty has a right to a thorough and sifting cross-examination of opposing witnesses the scope of which examination rests largely within the discretion of the trial judge.”
Jackson v. State,
4. In their sixth enumeration of error, the executors contend the trial court errеd in denying their motion for directed verdict, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a finding that they intentionally failed to pay estate debts in order to defeat the widow’s claim for year’s support.
“The standard of appellate review of a trial court’s denial of a
*539
motion for directed verdict is the ‘any evidence test.’
United Fed. Savings &c. Assn. v. Connell,
5. The executors’ seventh, eighth and ninth enumerations of error challenge the trial court’s failure to charge certain of their written requests.
“[I]n all civil cases, no party may complain of . . . the failure to give an instruction to the jury unless he objects thereto before the jury returns its verdict, stating distinсtly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.” OCGA § 5-5-24 (a). Although this Code section also provides that “[ojbjection need not be made with the partiсularity formerly required of assignments of error and need only be as reasonably definite as the circumstances will permit,” the executors’ objection that “[w]e except to the failure of the Court to charge [executors’] request No. 1A, 4, and 5, in that we believe that each of these requests to charge contain thе correct statement of law which is properly adjusted to the evidence,” fails to meet the requirements of the statute.
“The mere exception to a failure to give a numbered request to charge fails to meet [the] requirement [of OCGA § 5-5-24 (a)].
U. S. Security Warehouse, Inc. v. Tasty Sandwich Co.,
Further, OCGA § 5-5-24 (c) provides that “ [notwithstanding any other provision of this Code section, the appellate courts shall consider and review erroneous charges where there has been a substantial error in thе charge which was harmful as a matter of law, regardless of whether objection was made hereunder or not.” In the case sub judice, the refusal to give the chаrges requested show no such harmful error as a matter of law so as to require their consideration under subsection (c) of the statute. In fact, assuming approрriate objections were made, an examination of the requested charges shows that the subject matter of one of the charges was covered in the trial court’s instructions and that the other two requested charges were not supported by the evidence.
Judgment affirmed.