60 Fla. 125 | Fla. | 1910
The plaintiff in error brought an action against William Augustus Lewis and Edward Clay Lewis, copartners as W. A. & E. C. Lewis and before the same had been prosecuted) to final judgment caused a writ of garnishment to be issued and served upon H. H. Lewis, who filed an answer in which he denied any indebtedness or liability upon his part to the defendants in such action. The plaintiff traversed the answer of the garnishee and the issue thus formed came on for trial before a jury, which resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the garnishee. The plaintiff brings this judgment before us for review.
The transcript of the record is somewhat confused, but we have managed to glean from it the points sought to
We have several times pointed out the functions of a writ of error. See the full discussion and authorities cited in the concurring opinion in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Benedict Pineapple Co., 52 Fla., 165, text 172, 42 South. Rep., 529, text 532; Hoopes v. Crane, 56 Fla., 395, text 421, 47 South. Rep. 992, text 1001; Pensacola Electric Co. v. Soderlind, decided here at the present term. As we have said, the primary object of a writ of error is not to try the issues between the parties but rather to try the judgment rendered by the court below, to test the judgment by the law. “It is. not the action to be judged, but the judgment.” See Allen, Ball & Co. v. Mayor, &c., 9 Ga., 286, text 293, and authorities there cited. The respective parties litigant are presumed to have had their day in court and to have had the points at issue between them fairly and impartially tried and determined in accordance with the law of the land. The final judgment rendered in the trial court is presumed to be correct, and this presumption must be met in the appellate court and overcome by the plaintiff in error. See Clements v. State, 51 Fla., 6, 40 South. Rep., 432, and authorities there cited. He becomes the actor there, whether he occupied the position of plaintiff or defendant in the court below, and upon him rests the burden. It is incumbent upon him to show that the different rulings of the trial court, or certain of them, are so infected with error as to call for and compel a reversal
An examination of the respective assignments discloses that nearly all of them must fall under one or the other of the above enumerated principles. Some are so slightly argued that they may be treated as abandoned. See Hoodless v. Jernigan, 46 Fla., 213, 35 South. Rep., 656, and authorities there cited, and Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co., v. Dees, 56 Fla., 127, 48 South. Rep., 28. A majority of the assignments are predicated upon the exclusion of evidence which the plaintiff sought to introduce, but he has failed to make the relevancy and pertinency of such excluded evidence appear to us, so that we are unable to declare error in the rulings of the trial court thereon. In a number of instances the assignments are based upon the sustaining of objections interposed by the garnishee to questions propounded by the plaintiff to witnesses, but the relevancy of such questions does not appear on their .face and we are not advised what the answers thereto would have been or what the garnishee expected to prove
There seems to be no occasion for further extension of this opinion. It is sufficient to say that we have found no reversible error, and that, under the principles which we have enunciated as settled law in this court, the judgment must be affirmed.