Porter v. Rucker, 34660

• Decision Date: 01 July 1953
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 34660,34660,1
• Parties: PORTER v. RUCKER et al
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 842

76 S.E.2d 842

88 Ga.App. 486

PORTER v. RUCKER et al.

No. 34660.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

July 1, 1953.

Syllabus by the Court.

The verdict for the plaintiffs was authorized by the evidence, and the court did not err in denying the defendant's motion for a new trial on the general grounds.

James Rucker, Johnny Rucker, Ollie Rucker, Sandy Rucker, and Inith Rucker Borders brought this suit for damages against C. F. Porter, in Jackson Superior Court, and their petition was in two counts. Count one alleged substantially that the plaintiffs were the owners of 41 acres of land located in the 257th District, G. M., of Jackson County, Georgia, known as the William Rucker Old Home Place; that, during the year 1950, the defendant wilfully entered upon said lands and cut and removed therefrom and converted to his own use 8,175 feet of pine saw timber of the value of $776.62, to which the plaintiffs claim title; and that said C. F. Porter refused to deliver the above described property to the plaintiffs or to pay them the profits thereof.

It was alleged in count two that the defendant had injured and damaged the plaintiffs in the sum of $500; that, during the year 1950, said defendant entered upon the plaintiffs' lands without authority and committed a wilful and intentional trespass thereon with logging trucks and tractors, snaking logs, mashing down and cutting trees and small timber, and cutting out and building roads thereon, which resulted in the destruction of small timber and damage to the land in the sum of $500.

The defendant filed his answer to both counts, in which he alleged that he sawed some four or five thousand feet of timber in 1950, which was purchased by him from A. J. Daniel, executor of the A. D. Daniel estate, and which was represented to him by said Daniel as being on land belonging to said Daniel estate; that he had the right of egress and ingress to get the timber out; that he sawed the timber in good faith; and he denied liability to the plaintiffs for having cut the timber in question.

After the introduction of evidence by both sides, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $787.77. The defendant made a motion for new trial on the general grounds, which was denied, and the exception is to that judgment.

George W. Westmoreland, Jefferson, for plaintiff in error.

H. W. Davis, Jack S. Davidson, Jefferson, for defendants in error.

SUTTON, Chief Judge.

The question for determination is whether or not the verdict for $787.77 was authorized by the evidence. Porter (the plaintiff in error) contends that he was not an intentional trespasser on the Rucker land, and that the evidence did not warrant a verdict in the amount of $787.77.

T. M. Crow testified in behalf of the plaintiffs: that he was in the sawmill business and was asked to go down on the Rucker land to measure and figure out the timber that had been cut there; that he cruised it and figured 8,175 feet of timber had been cut, and he would have paid for that much timber if he had been buying it; and he explained in detail how he arrived at the number of feet of timber in counting the trees that had been cut. He testified that the lumber cut from that class of timber was selling at that time, in 1950, for $90 per thousand feet for the best grade and 2 by 10's were selling at $70 per thousand, and that there were a few more thousand feet of the best grade of timber cut on the tract in question than there were of the second grade; that the line between the Rucker land and the Daniel land (the Daniel land being where Porter had bought the timber) was pointed out to him, and the timber he had reference to was cut from the Rucker land. He also testified that a good many small trees had been cut and broken down on the Rucker land in cutting the sawmill timber thereon.

C. L. Potts...