Cates v. Harris, 21572

• Decision Date: 20 April 1962
• Docket Number: No. 21572,21572
• Citation: 217 Ga. 801,125 S.E.2d 649
• Parties: Nancy Lee Diane CATES, by Next Friend, v. Robert L. HARRIS.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 649

125 S.E.2d 649

217 Ga. 801

Nancy Lee Diane CATES, by Next Friend, v. Robert L. HARRIS.

No. 21572.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

April 20, 1962.

Wm. G. Grant, Atlanta, Charles H. Hyatt, Decatur, for plaintiff in error.

B. Hugh Burgess, Decatur, C. B. Rogers, Edward E. Dorsey, Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, Atlanta, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the court

CANDLER, Justice.

Nancy Lee Diane Cates, a minor, by and through her mother as next friend, brought a suit against Robert L. Harris for damages, alleging that he negligently struck and injured her with a Ford truck while she was crossing a street to board a public school bus. The case resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff. On the trial the plaintiff introduced certain opinion evidence, and the defendant timely and in writing requested the trial judge to give the following charge: 'I charge you that the opinion evidence introduced in this case was not conclusive or controlling. It is submitted to you Gentlemen of the Jury, merely for whatever you may think it worth. You may, upon review of the facts in the case disregard entirely the opinion of any witness, expert or nonexpert.' Special ground 2 of the defendant's motion for a new trial alleges that the court erred in failing to give the requested charge. On the denial of his amended motion, he sued out a writ of error to the Court of Appeals, and that Court ordered a new trial solely on the ground that the trial judge erred in not giving the requested charge. See Harris v. Cates, 105 Ga. App. 178(3), 123 S.E.2d 703. An application for certiorari, which assigned error only on that ruling, was granted by this court. Held:

'A request to charge should in itself be correct, and even perfect; otherwise the refusal to give it will not be cause for a new trial. Etheridge v. Hobbs, 77 Ga. 531, 3 S. E. 251.' Macon, Dublin & Savannah R. R. Co. v. Joyner, 129 Ga. 683(5), 688, 5. S.E. 902, 905. It must be legal, apt, and precisely adjusted to some principle involved in the case, and be authorized by the evidence. Lewis v. State, 196 Ga. 755(3), 760, 27 S.E.2d 2d 659; Downs v. Powell, 215 Ga. 62, 108 S.E.2d 715. A request to charge is not perfect in form when an inference is required to make it correct, and there is no error in refusing to give such a request. Norris v. State, 184 Ga. 397(3) 191 S.E. 375. Unless a request to charge is itself a complete statement of the principle invoked, without requiring any addition to make it perfect, a failure to give it will not require a new trial. Head v. Bridges, 67 Ga. 227(4). The Court of Appeals, in holding that the trial judge erred in refusing to give the requested charge, cited Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Saul, 189 Ga. 1, 6, 5 S.E2d 214, as authority for its ruling. The question for determination in that case was whether or not the plaintiff was totally and permanently disabled from certain ailments and disease. On such question expert and nonexpert witnesses werwe allowed to give their opinions. Respecting such evidence, the judge gave without request therefor a rather lengthy charge, but the charge there given is substantially different from the requested charge in this case, and such difference can...