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23 Ga. 222

Adkins v. Williams

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided June 15, 1857

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1857-06-15

Slander, in Dooly. Before Judge Powers, April Term, 1857. On appeal. This ivas an action for slander, brought by Hiram Williams against William Adkins, for charging, and saying of plaintiff that he had stolen defendant’s sheep.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The Court below, did not think the damages excessive. And the Court trying the case, must ever receive more light on the question of excessive damages, than it can impart to any other Court.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Smith v. Milikin

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1857-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently June 1984

16 state decisions

3018571860187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1By the Court —

Benning J.

¶2delivering the opinion.

¶3Were any of the grounds of the motion for a new trial, good?

¶4We think not. There is manifestly nothing in the first? second, and third grounds.

¶5The testimony of Jones, referred to in the fourth ground, was “relevant.”

¶6[1.] It is true, that the words to which that testimony related, were spoken some time before the day laid in the declaration, as the day of the speaking of the words declared on, but still, the speaking of the words at that earlier time, was a fact of some value, on the question of the quo animo with which, the words declared on were spoken. And the question of the quo animo, is ¡always involved in these cases. A man speaking in jest, is not a slanderer — at least, not unless he is understood as being in earnest. 2 Green Ev.,%% 271, 418. Note [l.]

¶7[2.] The Court below, did not think the damages excessive. And the Court trying the case, must ever receive more light on the question of excessive damages, than it can impart to any other Court.

¶8The damages may be heavy; but there is not enough disclosed to this Court, to satisfy it, that they are excessive. The boundaries for the amount of damages in cases of this kind, are any thing but fixed.

¶9There is then, nothing visible to this Court, in the fifth ground.

¶10The jury separated for their supper; but they did so, on their own request; they did so, by leave of the Court, and. under a charge, to “ have no intercourse or conversation, on the subject of the “suit,” and not to be present hearing the conversation of others on the subject”

¶11*225It does not appear that, whilst they were separate, any thing happened, calculated to throw suspicion orrthe verdict.

¶12The counsel for the defendant in the action, were present when the leave to separate, was given, and made no objection to its being given.

¶13[3.] Suchbeing the circumstances, the separation of the jury, cannot, we think, amount to a cause sufficient to require the verdict to beset aside. No case was read to show that it could.

¶14These are all the grounds.

¶15We affirm the judgment of the Court below.

¶16Judgment affirmed.

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