Legere v. Blakely Gin Co

• Decision Date: 10 July 1912
• Docket Number: (No. 4,130.)
• Citation: 11 Ga.App. 325,75 S.E. 163
• Parties: LEGERE . v. BLAKELY GIN CO.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

75 S.E. 163

(11 Ga.App. 325)

LEGERE .

v.BLAKELY GIN CO.

(No. 4, 130.)

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

July 10, 1912.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. Appeal and Error (§ 78^*)—Final Judgment—Directed Verdict.

The direction of a verdict is in no sense interlocutory, but is a final judgment, from which a writ of error will be.

[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Appeal and Error, Cent. Dig. §§ 426, 434, 464-477, 480, 481; Dec. Dig. § 78.*]

2. Trover and Conversion (§ 66*)—Directed Verdict—Conflicting Evidence.

This was an action of trover, where the evidence of the plaintiff proved title, value, conversion, and demand and refusal before suit, and the defendant admitted these elements of the case, except conversion, as to which the evidence was in conflict. Consequently the direction of a verdict for the defendant was erroneous.

[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Trover and Conversion, Cent. Dig. §§ 288-294; Dec. Dig. § 66.*]

Error from City Court of Blakely; L. M. Rambo, Judge.

Action by J. R. Legere against the Blakely Gin Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

W. W. Wright, of Blakely, for plaintiff in error.

Glessner & Park, of Blakely, for defendant in error.

HILL, C. J. The plaintiff in error brought trover against the Blakely Gin Company to recover a bale of cotton. At the conclusion of the evidence the court directed a verdict for the defendant, and this is the error assigned. When the case was called in this court a motion was made to dismiss the writ of error, on the ground that there was no exception to any final judgment, "but only to the interlocutory action of the judge in directing the jury to return a verdict."

1. There is no merit in this motion. It has been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court and this court that the direction of a verdict is such a final judgment as will support a bill of exceptions. Meeks v. Meeks, 5 Ga. App. 394, 63 S. E. 270; Duggan v. Monk, 5 Ga. App. 206, 62 S. E. 1017, and citations; Howell v. Pennington, 118 Ga. 494, 45 S. E. 272; Scarborough v. Holder, 127 Ga. 256, 56 S. E. 293.

2. The undisputed evidence shows that the bale of cotton was delivered by the plaintiff to the defendant for the purpose of having it ginned, and that the plaintiff made a demand on the defendant for the cotton, and the defendant refused to deliver it to him or to pay him its value. Indeed, the defendant admits these facts, but defends on the ground that it had nothing to do with the cotton, except to gin it, and, after it was ginned, to place it on a platform, from which it was to be afterwards hauled by a drayman of the Farmers' Warehouse to the ware house, where it was to be held subject to the order of the plaintiff; and in support of this defense evidence was introduced to the effect that the plaintiff, when the cotton was delivered to the defendant, instructed the defendant to send to the Farmers' Warehouse, when the cotton was ginned and baled, the coupons calling for it. The plaintiff denied that he had given any such instructions. Under these facts, the defendant insisted in the court below, and insists here, that no conversion of the cotton was shown, and that the plaintiff failed to carry the burden which the law imposed upon him of proving the conversion; that the proper remedy was an action on the case, for a breach of contract, and that trover did not lie; in other words, that the bailor should have brought an action ex contractu against the bailee, based on the implied contract to return the cotton to the plaintiff as its owner after the purpose of the bailment had been accomplished. Bates v. Bigby, 123 Ga. 727, 51 S. E. 717.

Now, the undisputed evidence showed title to the bale of cotton in the plaintiff, and that its value was $35.75, and the plaintiff testified that he delivered this bale of cotton to the defendant for the purpose...