Son v. Carpenter

• Decision Date: 15 May 1924
• Docket Number: (No. 4220.)
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: J. J. BULL & SON. v. CARPENTER.

158 Ga. 360

123 S.E. 614

J. J. BULL & SON.

v.CARPENTER.

(No. 4220.)

Supreme Court of Georgia.

May 15, 1924.

(Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)

Certified Question from Court of Appeals.

Action between J. J. Bull & Son against R. P. Carpenter, trustee. Judgment for latter, and former brought error to Court of Appeals, which certified questions to Supreme Court. Question not answered.

J. J. Bull & Son, of Oglethorpe, and J. H. Poole and Fulwood & Murray, all of Tifton, for plaintiff in error.

J. S. Ridgdill and S. P. Mitchell, both of Tifton, for defendant in error.

GILBERT, J. The Court of Appeals propounded the following question:

"Where a suit is brought against a trustee for a sum alleged to be due for legal services under and by virtue of an express oral contract alleged to have been made with a predecessor in office of the defendant trustee, and where, in support of his own evidence that such contract was made, the plaintiff introduces the interrogatories of the former trustee, by which the making of the alleged contract is corroborated, but the defendant, the present trustee, introduces in rebuttal depositions of the same former trustee, taken subsequently to his interrogatories, in which depositions he affirmatively denies the making of the contract sued on, but without any explanation of his conflicting testimony as contained in the interrogatories sued out by the plaintiff, and where there are no other facts or circumstances in evidence supporting a verdict rendered in favor of the defendant, must the verdict be set aside as being 'without evidence to support it and contrary to law, ' on the theory that it is necessarily based solely upon the evidence of a witness who has knowingly and willfully testified falsely to a leading and material fact respecting which there could be no mistake or misapprehension? See, in this connection, Plummer v. State, 111 Ga. 839, 36 S. E. 233; Glenn v. Augusta, etc., Ry. Co., 121 Ga. 80, 48 S. E. 684."

"Where a certified question of law does not propound a distinct issue of law, but in effect calls for a decision of the whole case, this court need not, and in this case does not, answer it." Lynch v. Southern Express Co., 146 Ga. 68 (4), 90 S. E. 527; L. & N. R. Co. v. Hood, 149 Ga. 829, 834. 102 S. E. 521; English v. Rosenkrantz, 150 Ga. 817, 105 S. E. 613; Washington Loan & Banking Co. v. Stanton, 157 Ga. 885, 123 S. E. 612 (decided April 17, 1924); Constitution of Georgia (Const, art. 6, § 2, par. 9 [Civ. Code 1910, §...