141 Ga. 435 | Ga. | 1914
1. Error is assigned upon numerous rulings of tlie court in excluding or in admitting testimony; hut none of them show any error requiring the grant of a new trial.
(а) Certain of the grounds complain of the court’s action in sustaining objections to questions propounded on direct examination by the plaintiff in error to his own witnesses; and while the answer expeeted to these questions is stated, it does not appear that the court was informed of what answer was expected. Artesian Lithia Water Company v. Central Bank & Trust Corporation, 138 Ga. 618 (75 S. E. 646).
(б) Other grounds complaining of the rejection, or admission of evidence set forth the evidence in such a fragmentary way that the extract is either not intelligible or it would require a search into the brief of evidence for the context to discover whether the evidence was material or not. McCalman v. State, 121 Ga. 491 (49 S. E. 609) ; Buck & Downing v. Nicholls Mfg. Co., 122 Ga. 255 (50 S. E. 82); Smith v. State, 126 Ga. 803 (55 S. E. 1024).
(e) Where the evidence is set forth in such a manner as to be considered by this court, in the other grounds complaining of the rejection or admission of evidence, no' error appears in the rulings of the court.
2. Under the facts of this case it was not error harmful to the plaintiff for the court to charge the jury, in substance, that if a certain deed which on its face appeared to be an absolute conveyance was in fact a deed to secure a debt due from the grantor (plaintiff) to the grantee, still if the defendant in this case, against whom this action was brought to recover the land so conveyed, “took up the debt” at the instance of the grantor in the security deed, and took from the heirs at law of the grantee therein a deed to the same land to secure him in the repayment of the money, after the lapse of a period of ten years from the last recognition, upon the part of the grantee in the last-mentioned security deed, of the right of the debtor (plaintiff) to redeem the land, her right of redemption would be barred.
3. The court (after having instructed the jury that if the defendant in the case took a deed to the property in controversy from the heirs at law of the grantee in the deed first mentioned in the preceding headnote,' only for the purpose of securing the repayment of money which he had paid out for. the benefit of the grantor in that deed and at her instance, and' was admitted into possession of the land aloné by virtue of such a security-deed, then prescription would not run in his favor) charged the jury that if the defendant, after taking such security deed, was admitted ■ into possession by virtue of an agreement whereby he purchased and
(б) The charge dealt with in this headnote does not contain error harmful to the excepting party in this .case, but would have been open to challenge by the defendants had they, instead of prevailing, been the losing parties, on the ground that it should have been qualified by a statement in this connection, or elsewhere in the charge, of the provisions of § 3258 of the Civil Code, which provides that “A deed or bill of sale, absolute on its face and accompanied with possession of the property, shall not be proved (at the instance of the parties) by parol evidence to be a mortgage only, unless fraud in its procurement is the issue to be tried.” And this observation is applicable to the charge referred to in the second and fifth headnotes.
4. The court in another part of the charge having submitted to the jury the question whether the first deed above referred' to was infected with usury, and having • instructed them as to the effect of usury upon the rights and title of the plaintiff and defendant, it was not necessary to repeat such instructions in connection with the charges dealt with in headnotes 2 and 3.
5. The extracts from the charge of the court previously dealt with, and the instructions to the jury on the effect of ratification by the plaintiff of a contract between her husband and the defendant, whereby the plaintiff’s equity in the land sued for was sold to the defendant, were not unauthorized by the evidence.
6. There was evidence also to authorize the charges upon the subject of prescriptive right founded upon adverse claim under color of title.
7. The requests to charge, so far as legal and pertinent, were sufficiently not unauthorized by the evidence.
Judgment affirmed.