108 Ga. 145 | Ga. | 1899
The number of cases brought to this court for review has been increasing for many years. The number on the dockets for the October term, 1898, and the March term, 1899, shows no diminution, but an increase over any other two consecutive terms in the history of the court. The constitution of the State requires this court to decide every case brought here at the first or the second term. In order to decide them properly it is absolutely necessary for the court to read the records and thus become familiar with the evidence and the questions made in the cases. More than nine hundred cases, civil and criminal, have been brought to these last two terms.of the court, and it was necessary for us to read the records in nearly all of these cases. To do so takes much time and study. This court many years ago advised and even importuned counsel to make briefs of evidence which included only the material facts in the cases. Counsel failed to heed the request made by the court, and the General Assembly, by the act of 1889, prescribed how a brief of evidence should be made up. It declared that a brief of evidence should be “a condensed and succinct brief of the material portions of the oral testimony, including a similar brief of interrogatories read on the trial. In such brief there shall be included the substance of all material portions of all documentary evidence.” Civil Code, §5488. Counsel still failed to obey not only the mandate of this court but of the General Assembly, and continued to file briefs which included everything said and done in the trial of the cases, whether material or immaterial. Questions of counsel and the answers of the witness, colloquies between the counsel and the court and
With a full knowledge of these cases, counsel still adhered to the practice of failing to brief the evidence as required by law. Some persisted in presenting for the approval of the court below the full stenographic report of questions and answers and colloquies of the court and counsel. Others pretended to comply with the code by simply striking out the questions of counsel and leaving the answers without any explanation, so that some of them were entirely unintelligible. In these so-called briefs of evidence fact after fact is stated and reiterated time after time. One immaterial fact is stated over
Since this case was decided, a motion for a rehearing has been made. The case of Berg v. Baer, 104 Ga. 587, was cited, and relied on in the application as authority for granting a rehearing and reinstating the case so that it might be decided upon its merits. That case differs materially from this. It there appeared that the counsel for defendant in error agreed to the brief of evidence and appeared and argued the motion for
Judgment affirmed.