Moore v. Smith
Decision Date | 17 November 1948 |
Docket Number | No. 32091.,32091. |
Parties | MOORE. v. SMITH. |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Error from City Court of Carrollton; Robert D. Tisinger, Judge.
Action by Clarence Smith against Billie Lee Moore and another arising out of automobile accident. To review a judgment for plaintiff against named defendant, the named defendant alone brings error.
Affirmed.
Claude Driver, of Buchanan, and Willis Smith, of Carrollton, for plaintiff in error.
Don Howe, of Buchanan, and Emmett Smith, of Carrollton, for defendant in error.
Clarence Smith, the defendant in error, filed an action for personal injury damages and medical and hospital expenses accruing to him as a result of an automobile accident of which he was the victim on March 18, 1947, naming as joint defendants Mrs. Thelma Odessa Stevens, a resident of California, Billie Lee Moore, the plaintiff in error, and J. C. Parrish, as the principal of Billie Lee Moore and owner of the car which Moore was driving at the time of the accident, and alleging that the accident was due to the negligence of Mrs. Stevens and of Moore. Prior to the trial of the case the plaintiff by amendment struck from the suit the name of Mrs. Stevens as a party defendant. The trial was had on September 19, 1947, in the City of Carrollton and resulted in a verdict against the defendant Moore, but in favor of the defendant Parrish, and judgment was entered in accordance therewith. Billie Lee Moore filed a motion for a new trial and an amendment thereto, which mo tion after a hearing was overruled, to which judgment he excepted.
1. The first ground of the amendment of the motion for a new trial alleged as grounds therefor the discovery of new evidence in the case which if it had been known at the time of the trial would have been a bar to the recovery of the plaintiff against the defendant Moore and attached thereto was the joint affidavit of Moore and his counsel alleging that in the exercise of ordinary diligence they could not have discovered the evidence. It appears from this ground that on August 29, 1947, the plaintiff executed an instrument which was made a part of the motion and which was as hereafter appears: "Georgia, Fulton County.
The instrument was signed and sealed by Mrs. Mozelle Smith and Clarence Smith and was notarized.
It is true as contended by the plaintiff in error that there can be but one satisfaction of the same damage or injury; and that, if, instead of merely dismissing his suit against one of two defendants suedjointly, the plaintiff proceeds, for a consideration, to fully settle and satisfy his claim against one, he cannot by the terms of such accord and satisfaction, where the injury or damage complained of is the same, limit the release to the defendant thus dealt with, but in such case the claim itself becomes extinguished. Donaldson v. Car-michael, 102 Ga. 40(2), 42, 43, 29 S.E. 135; Griffin Hosiery Mills v. United Hosiery Mills, 31 Ga.App. 450, 120 S.E. 789; Cap-Ian v. Caplan, 62 Ga.App. 577, 9 S.E.2d 96. However, there is a decided difference between the consequence of an accord and satisfaction, or release of one of the defendants, and that of a mere covenant not to sue one of the defendants.
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