2 Ga. App. 755 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1907
Mrs. Sams brought suit against Will and George T. Patterson, in a justice’s court, for $100, damages, alleging that the defendants caused 93 cords of her wood to be burned and destroyed. It appears that the justice rendered a judgment with which the plaintiff was dissatisfied, and she appealed to a jury in the justice’s court. After verdict by the jury in the justice’s court, the case was carried by certiorari to the superior court, and the judgment of the justice’s court was reversed, and the case was remanded for another trial in the justice’s court. Before this trial the case was, by consent of both parties, appealed to the superior court. On the trial in the superior court, upon motion of plaintiff’s counsel, a nonsuit was granted as to Will Patterson, and a verdict was rendered against G. T. Patterson for $65. Before proceeding to trial in the superior court, the defendants demurred generally and specially to the plaintiff’s petition attached to the summons in the justice’s court. They demurred specially because the petition did not set out the kind of servant the defendants employed, nor what his duties were, and because the petition failed to set out with sufficient certainty in what manner the defendants were negligent, or in what way their servant was negligent. The court overruled the demurrers, and exceptions were filed pendente lite. Error is assigned on the judgment overruling the demurrers, and on the order granting the nonsuit, and on the refusal of the motion for new trial.
It must be borne in mind that the case, being in the superior court by appeal from the justice’s court, must be tried as if it were still in the justice’s court. And, as was expressly held in Ga. S. & F. Ry. Co. v. Barfield, 1 Ga. App. 203 (58 S. E. 236), “the terms of the Civil Code, §4116, requiring a copy of the cause of action sued on to be attached to the summons in a justice’s court, do not necessitate a specific allegation of negligence, or a detailed relation of the acts from which negligence may be inferred, or by which it is to be proved, or that the plaintiff set out a statement of the facts which constitute the alleged negligence.” The requirement as to summons and copy in a justice’s court is an' exception to the general rules of pleading. And the case is not changed by reason of an appeal to the superior court. As held by this court in Southern Railway Co. v. Oliver, 1 Ga. App. 734 (58 S. E. 244), “it is neither possible, practicable, nor requisite to indulge in the niceties of pleading,” in a justice’s court. There was, therefore, no error in overruling both the spe