Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. Rider, 66354

• Decision Date: 07 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 66354,66354
• Citation: 168 Ga.App. 136,308 S.E.2d 378
• Parties: WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION v. RIDER.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 378

308 S.E.2d 378

168 Ga.App. 136

WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION v. RIDER.

No. 66354.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Sept. 7, 1983.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 23, 1983.

Certiorari Denied Jan. 6, 1984.

J. Kirk Quillian, Douglas D. Salyers, Mary Grace Diehl, Atlanta, for appellant.

Thomas J. Browning, Marietta, for appellee.

CARLEY, Judge.

Appellee brought suit, as beneficiary of her deceased husband, to recover under a group occupational travel accident insurance policy provided by appellant Westinghouse to its employees and underwritten by Insurance Company of North America. This case has been considered twice by this court. See Rider v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 152 Ga.App. 805, 264 S.E.2d 276 (1979) and Rider v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 155 Ga.App. 61, 270 S.E.2d 288 (1980). The facts of the case are fully set forth in our previous opinions and will not be repeated here. In Rider, 155 Ga.App. 61, 270 S.E.2d 288, supra, we reversed the grant of summary judgment to Westinghouse and held that Mrs. Rider's right of recovery hinged upon whether or not her husband had received a certain explanatory booklet which clarified the coverage and delineated the exclusions of the insurance policy provided by Westinghouse. Thereafter, the case was tried before a jury. A verdict was rendered in favor of appellee in the amount of $25,000, plus interest. Following the denial of its motion for a new trial, Westinghouse filed this appeal.

1. Westinghouse first asserts that the trial court erred in denying its motion for a new trial on the general grounds. At trial, Ms. Sikes, an employee of appellant Westinghouse, testified that she had provided appellee's husband with the explanatory insurance handbook. Ms. Sikes explained that she had distributed the booklets to Westinghouse's two repair shop truck drivers, one of whom was appellee's husband, by placing them in separate boxes assigned to the individual employees and labelled with their respective names. Mrs. Sikes testified that she had joked with Rider at the time about his pension, which was explained in the same booklet. Appellant asserts that Ms. Sikes' testimony was positive and unimpeached, and that the jury improperly rejected it in finding that Mr. Rider had not received the handbook.

"Direct and positive testimony, as distinguished from testimony circumstantial, opinionative, or actually negative in character, which [was] given by an unimpeached witness as to the existence of a fact apparently within his own knowledge, which [was] not in itself incredible, impossible, or inherently improbable, and which [was] not contradicted directly or by proof of facts or circumstances that could be taken as incompatible with such testimony, can not be arbitrarily rejected by a jury or other trier of the facts upon the mere surmise that it perhaps might not be in accord with the truth." Lankford v. Holton, 187 Ga. 94, 102, 200 S.E. 243 (1938). "Circumstantial evidence from which the existence of a fact might be inferred, but which did not demand a finding for the plaintiff to that effect, will not support a verdict, when by positive and uncontradicted testimony of unimpeached witnesses, which was perfectly consistent with the circumstantial evidence relied on by the plaintiff, it was affirmatively shown that no such fact existed." Myers v. Phillips, 197 Ga. 536, 542, 29 S.E.2d 700 (1944).

In the instant case, however, there was evidence from which the jury reasonably could have found that Ms. Sikes' testimony should be discredited. Her account of the distribution of the booklets was contradicted by the testimony of Mr. McRae, who had been the only other truck driver at the repair shop at the time. In his testimony, Mr. McRae stated that he had a habit of saving papers and check stubs from Westinghouse and that he kept all of those papers together. He had examined his documents from Westinghouse and the booklet was not among them. When asked whether he had received a copy of the particular handbook in issue, he replied, "... I never did get one of these kinds like this." Other evidence, while perhaps not directly contradictory to the testimony of Ms. Sikes, served to cast doubt upon it. Appellee Mrs. Rider testified that her husband had saved his papers and documents from Westinghouse, and that the booklet was not among them. Furthermore, her husband had never mentioned or shown the handbook to her in their discussions of insurance matters.

"In a case where the direct evidence is not all one way, or where there are proved facts and circumstances which could be taken as inconsistent with the direct positive testimony, the jury may always consider the relationship and the feeling of the witnesses toward the parties, as well as all the facts and circumstances of the case, including the witnesses' manner of testifying, their intelligence and number." Lankford v. Holton, supra at 102, 200 S.E. 243. In the case at bar, the jury reasonably could have found that Ms. Sikes' testimony was impeached. " 'Questions as to creditability and preponderance address themselves to the trier of facts. [Cits.] On appeal, the appellate tribunal does not determine the credibility of witnesses or the preponderance of the evidence. The appellate tribunal utilizes the "any evidence" test, a test not available to the trier of facts in deciding disputed factual issues.' Guye v. Home Indemnity Co., 241 Ga. 213, 215, 244 S.E.2d 864 (1978)." Crawley v. MARTA, 147 Ga.App. 293, 294, 248 S.E.2d 555 (1978). See also, Keno v. Alside, Inc., 148 Ga.App. 549, 251 S.E.2d 793 (1978).

The trial court did not err in denying Westinghouse's motion for a new trial on the general grounds.

2. Appellant enumerates as error the trial court's refusal to give four of its requests to charge. Two of the refused charges pertained to Mr. Rider's exercise of ordinary diligence and his duty to make further inquiry as to the extent of his insurance coverage. Another concerned misrepresentation as to the legal effect of an insurance policy. The fourth charge addressed...