24 Ga. 518 | Ga. | 1858
By the Court. delivering the opinion.
The presiding Judge in the Court below granted a new trial in this cause, and his decision granting the new trial is assigned for error.
The rule for admitting opinions ought to be ciconfined to cases in which from the very nature of the subject, facts disconnected from such opinions cannot be so presented to a jury as to enable them to pass upon the question with the requisite knowledge and judgment Jefferson Ins. Co. vs. Cothral, 7 Wendell’s Rep. 78.
The question in this case was whether the negroes who, at an early day, went into the possession of John Parker and his wife Chloe, were loaned or given to the daughter, Mrs. Parker, by her father, Christopher Pritchett. The witness, Sally Sullivan, testified in her first depositions, that she thinks the negroes were given or loaned. From her then present recollection she thinks they were loaned. She thinks the negroes were given or loaned shortly after they went to housekeeping. They went to housekeeping, she thinks, about four months after they were married. In her depositions last given, she reiterates that to the best of her recollection and belief, the negroes were loaned.' Some time after the marriage, the negroes -were permitted to go into the possession of
The plaintiffs, if they recover, must recover under the will of Christopher'Pritchett, and according to the construction of that will, those children only, of Chloe Parker, who survived her, are entitled to recover.
The defendant’s purchase gave him the title of the tenant for life, and the remainder-men might have considered the property safe in his hands, until the accrual of their title.
We do not perceive that the verdict of the jury conflicts with any legal principle, or with the charge of the Court.
It is alleged that the verdict of the jury was found without evidence, and contrary to evidence, and contrary to the weight of evidence.
There is no evidence in this case of any fact or circumstance, that the plaintiffs, or any of them, had practiced a fraud upon the defendant, or waived any right to proceed against him.
We sustain the Court below, in granting the new trial on the ground on which we have shown that we think the rule should have been made absolute. 11 .
Judgment affirmed.