William Moneagle & Co. v. Livingston

• Decision Date: 14 February 1907
• Citation: 43 So. 840,150 Ala. 562
• Parties: WILLIAM MONEAGLE & CO. ET AL. v. LIVINGSTON. [*]
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

43 So. 840

150 Ala. 562

WILLIAM MONEAGLE & CO. ET AL. v. LIVINGSTON. ^[*]

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 14, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Mobile County; Samuel B. Browne, Judge.

Action by Gilbert D. Livingston against William Moneagle & Co. and others. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed and rendered.

Robert L. Gordon, for appellants.

Charles L. Bromberg, for appellee.

HARALSON J.

An original suit was instituted before R. J. Jordan, a justice of the peace, for $100 as damages, for the breach of the condition of a garnishment bond payable to the plaintiff Gilbert D. Livingston, by the defendants, William Moneagle and D. W.

Partridge as partners under the name of Moneagle & Co., and L. W Coleman. The suit in which the garnishment bond was given was instituted before J. O. Sims, a justice of the peace, by Moneagle & Co. against the plaintiff, Livingston, and a judgment was rendered against him for $52 and costs, and against the garnishees, Barnes & Co., for $8.25 and costs. There was a judgment in favor of plaintiff against Moneagle & Co., and the individuals composing the firm, for $54 and costs. The case was appealed to the circuit court, where, at a special term of the court in July, 1903, the cause was tried, resulting in a verdict and judgment against the defendants for $100. On the 17th of July, 1906, the defendants filed a motion for a new trial, upon the ground, that the judgment "was rendered contrary to the law and evidence in said cause," which motion was, on the 3d day of August, 1906 overruled. A bill of exceptions was taken in the cause. The court, at the request of the defendants, gave the general affirmative charge in their favor, but the jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $100, and a judgment was rendered accordingly, to which ruling the defendants excepted, which was the only exception reserved.

On the trial of this motion, as we have before stated, and as is stated in the bill of exceptions, the defendants asked, "that the verdict and judgment be set aside upon the ground that the verdict recovered was contrary to the law and evidence in said cause." (Italics ours.) The grounds of the motion, it will be observed, were two: (1) That the verdict was contrary to the law; and (2) that it was contrary to the evidence.

In Cobb v. Malone, 92 Ala. 633, 9 So. 738, it was said that when the ground of the motion is the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the substance of the evidence being reduced to writing, a general assignment is sufficient. "But when the reason...