47 Ga. App. 826 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1933
Glover brought suit against Veazey et al., receivers of the Gainesville Midland Eailway, for personal injuries received as the result of a collision between a freight-car being operated on the said railroad and an automobile in which Glover was riding. The injury occurred at the intersection of Church street, in Gaines-ville, Georgia, with the railroad tracks. The trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of ten thousand dollars. It will only be necessary to discuss the ruling in the first headnote. It is complained in the motion for a new trial that Judge J. B. Jones, of counsel for plaintiff, in the concluding argument to the jury, said: “They make a great big hullabaloo about this thing, but what difference does it make ? Even when we get a judgment we very likely wouldn’t be able to collect anything — the blamed thing is in the hands of the receivers now, and you can’t levy on anything that its got and can’t collect a cent even if we got a judgment.” Counsel for the defendant then and there objected to this language as being improper and prejudicial to defendant, and moved the court to declare a mistrial. The court then said: “I instruct the jury now that as to whether or not this road is in the hands of the receiver, and any remark by Judge Jones in regard to the collection of any judgment you might render, that you will entirely disregard, as under our rules of practice it makes no difference whether or not the railroad is in the hands of the receiver; and you will disregard any such remarks made by counsel in that respect, and you will not allow that to influence you in any way whatsoever in arriving at a true and just verdict in this case; and the motion for mistrial is overruled.” Movant insists, that Judge Jones, having been for sixteen years judge of the court in which the case was tried, stood high at the bar and was arguing to a jury of men who held him in high esteem; that there was no evidence in the case to the effect that the plaintiff could not collect anything if and when he got a judgment, and the right of the plaintiff to recover did not depend on whether the defendant was solvent or insolvent; that the language used was suggestive of the fact that the plaintiff, if a judgment was rendered in his favor, would have to take a percentage of the amount given, and was calculated to cause the jury to give a larger amount than it possibly would otherwise render, in order to
Judgment reversed.