Gaulding v. Courts Et Al‪.‬

Courts & Company, a partnership consisting of certain named partners, filed an action in the Superior Court of Madison County, alleging that the defendant, John M. Gaulding, was indebted to it in a sum certain on an account for the purchase and sale of cotton-futures contracts in which the plaintiffs acted as brokers for the defendant. The defendant filed certain special demurrers to the petition, an answer and cross-action, and prayed an order referring the case to an auditor, which prayer was granted. Both petition and answer were several times amended, and the plaintiff made a motion to strike the defendant's answer which was sustained by the auditor. The plaintiff by amendment set up a written contract denominated a customer's agreement, allegedly signed by the defendant, to which the latter filed a plea of non est factum. The auditor found against this plea, filed his findings of fact and of law, and entered a report against the defendant recommending judgment for $3,536.10, the exact amount for which the action was brought. Exceptions of law and of fact were made by the defendant. The Judge of the superior court submitted to a jury the exceptions of fact dealing with the plea of non est factum, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the findings of the auditor and against the plea. A motion for new trial was made and denied, and error is assigned thereon. Thereafter, the Judge disallowed the exceptions of law, approved the auditor's report, and denied a motion to recommit the case, on which judgment error is also assigned, as well as upon the final judgment in favor of the plaintiff. 1. The single special ground of the motion for new trial assigns error upon the failure of the court to write out the possible verdicts in the case when requested by the jury so to do. Code § 110-103 provides as follows: ""The Judges of the superior courts shall, upon request of the jury, in the trial of all civil cases, furnish said jury with written instructions as to the form of their verdict."" After the jury had deliberated, they returned and the foreman of the jury requested that the verdicts be written out. In response to questions by the court, the foreman stated that they had agreed on a verdict, and wanted the court to read the verdicts submitted; that the foreman would state which one it was and then the court would write it out, which was done. Since the foreman stated that the jury had already found ""with the auditor"", and the jury was polled as to the verdict reached, any error in failing to write out the verdict in favor of the defendant and ""against the auditor"" was harmless to movant, and would not be a ground of a motion for new trial, such as to authorize the reversal of the case, since error, to be harmful, must be accompanied by injury. Chapman v. Walden, 183 Ga. 395, 398 (188 S.E. 885).