Atlanta, K. & N. Ry. Co. v. Strickland
| Decision Date | 30 October 1902 |
| Citation | 42 S.E. 864,116 Ga. 439 |
| Parties | ATLANTA, K. & N. RY. CO. v. STRICKLAND et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Questions as to the passage of time and the speed of trains usually involve opinions, and therefore testimony to the effect that a period was but a short time, or that, in the opinion of the witness, a train was running at a rate of four or five miles per hour, is competent.
2. It is not competent, for the purpose of sustaining a witness and showing that he was present and saw an occurrence, to prove that he afterwards told different persons that he was present and did witness the occurrence.
3. Except as stated in the headnote last preceding, no error is found in the rulings of the trial court.
Error from superior court, Pickens county; Geo. F. Gober, Judge.
Action by Roy Strickland and others, by their next friend, against the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant brings error. Reversed.
Smith Hammond & Smith, for plaintiff in error.
F. C Tate, N. A. Morris, and E. P. Green, for defendants in error.
The defendants in error, as the minor children of a deceased employé of the plaintiff in error, obtained a verdict based upon a claim of his negligent homicide. A motion for a new trial was made by the defendant company upon the general grounds, and upon the further ground that the court below erred in certain rulings as to the admissibility of evidence and in refusing to grant a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence which it is claimed shows that the principal witness for the plaintiff below was guilty of perjury in testifying that he was present at the time of the homicide, and witnessed it.
The error that we find in the rulings of the court below, and which is covered by several grounds of the motion for a new trial, is the admission of testimony by this witness, and by others in corroboration of him, to the effect that on the day after the occurrence he said that he was present and saw the homicide. This was admitted because the railroad company had claimed and had endeavored to show that the witness was not present, but had manufactured his testimony. We do not think that a witness can be "bolstered up" in this way. The error seems to us to have been material, because we can readily conceive how such testimony would probably have a strong influence upon the minds of the jury in...
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Cuzzort v. State, 41943
...by proof that her testimony at trial is consistent with what she told someone in an out-of-court statement. Atlanta K & NR. Co. v. Strickland, 116 Ga. 439 (42 SE 864)." Seaboard Coast Line R. & Co. v. Duncan, 123 Ga.App. 479, 480, 181 S.E.2d 535 (1971); Fuller v. State, 196 Ga. 237, 26 S.E.......
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Fuller v. State
... ... Thompson's testimony. The objection in the motion that it ... is incompetent to corroborate a witness in this way is also ... sound. Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Company v ... Strickland, 116 Ga. 439, 42 S.E. 864. Each of the grounds ... complains of the admission in evidence ... ...
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Lance v. State
...she could not restate the facts narrated by her to them. This ruling is not in conflict with that made in Atlanta, K. & N. Ry. Co. v. Strickland, 116 Ga. 439, 42 S.E. 864. upon the next trial of this case no effort is made to show that the witness Mrs. Morris had kept silent in reference to......
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Cook v. State
...Fussell v. State, 93 Ga. 450, 21 S.E. 97; Knight v. State, 114 Ga. 48, 39 S.E. 928, 88 Am.St.Rep. 17 (3); Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern R. Co. v. Strickland, 116 Ga. 439, 42 S.E. 864. The circumstances under which such evidence might admissible were discussed in McCord v. State, 83 Ga. 521,......