Who is the “Thirteenth Juror”?
A panel of the Georgia Court of Appeals recently held that the trial court explicitly stated it would not reweigh evidence or judge credibility, and therefore failed to properly consider the motion under the “thirteenth juror” standard in an auto accident case.
Under the “thirteenth juror” rule, the trial judge independently reviews the evidence and, acting as a sort of “thirteenth juror,” decides whether he or she agrees with the verdict of the 12 jurors. If the judge disagrees, the parties must re-try the case.
“Even when the evidence is legally sufficient to uphold a conviction, a trial judge may grant a new trial if the verdict of the jury is contrary to the principles of justice and equity, O.C.G.A. § 5-5-20, or if the verdict is decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence, O.C.G.A. § 5-5-21,” the Court of Appeals explained in 2024.
When these so-called “general grounds” are properly raised in a timely motion for new trial, the trial judge must exercise a broad discretion to sit as a “thirteenth juror.”
Background
In October 2018, the plaintiff owned and operated a transportation company and was driving a delivery van on Interstate 20 to pick up a load for his business. He was in heavy stop-and-go traffic and was at a complete stop with no one behind him when a vehicle crashed into the back of his van. The impact pushed his van into the vehicle in front of him, causing him injury.
The vehicle that crashed into the plaintiff was owned by a die cutting business and driven by its employee. The driver admitted at trial that he caused the collision and that he was cited for the accident. In 2020, the plaintiff sued the business, the employee driver, and both their insurance companies for his injuries and damages. A jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the amount of $50,000, and the trial court entered a final order and judgment based on the jury’s verdict. The plaintiff filed a motion for additur or new trial, which was denied. He then appealed.
On appeal, the plaintiff asserted that the trial court failed to exercise its discretion as the “thirteenth juror” when considering his motion for new trial. In his motion for new trial, the plaintiff argued that the verdict was contrary to the evidence and the principles of justice and equity under O.C.G.A. § 5-5-20 and was “strongly against the weight of the evidence” under O.C.G.A. § 5-5-21.
Court of Appeals Vacates
Court of Appeals Judge Ken Hodges wrote that O.C.G.A. § 5-5-20 authorizes the trial court to grant a new trial “in any case when the verdict of a jury is found contrary to evidence and the principles of justice and equity,” and O.C.G.A. § 5-5-21 empowers the trial court to grant a new trial “where the verdict may be decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence even though there may appear to be some slight evidence in favor of the finding.”
These statutes, also known as the “general grounds” for a new trial, afford a trial judge broad discretion to sit as a ‘thirteenth juror’ and weigh the evidence on a motion for new trial alleging these general grounds. When faced with a motion for new trial based on these general grounds, the trial judge must consider some of the things that they can’t when assessing the legal sufficiency of the evidence, including any conflicts in the evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and the weight of the evidence.
Judge Hodges explained that the Court of Appeals presumes, in the absence of affirmative evidence to the contrary, that the trial court properly exercised its discretion pursuant to O.C.G.A. §§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21. However, if the record reflects that the trial court failed to exercise its discretion and sit as the thirteenth juror because he did not feel that he had the duty or authority to override the findings of the jury upon disputed issues of fact, the Court will vacate and remand the case for the trial court to fulfill its affirmative statutory duty.
In this case, the trial judge never considered the general grounds or exercised his discretion as a “thirteenth juror.” The trial court’s order didn’t reference general grounds, gave no indication that the trial court had considered or reweighed the evidence presented at trial, and didn’t suggest that the trial court had exercised its discretion pursuant to O.C.G.A. §§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21. The order further showed no explicit reference to the standard it employed in denying the plaintiff’s motion for new trial on the general grounds. The judge never mentioned the general grounds or its standard of review at the hearing, and the court’s stated reasons for denying the motion for new trial explicitly showed that the trial judge denied the motion using an improper standard for the general grounds.
At the hearing, the trial judge noted that both parties presented plausible positions. He then stated that crediting one position over the other would put the court “in a position of second-guessing 12 DeKalb County residents who reached a unanimous verdict after they heard all the evidence in this case and applied a correct charge on the law.”
The judge went on to say, “that’s, in essence, asking the court to reweigh the evidence and come out the other way; and that is something the court should not do.”
Later in rendering the court’s decision, the trial judge noted:
the jury . . . gets to determine the credibility of the witnesses; that’s another area they have, as to each and every witness. And that’s an area where it’s particularly an issue for them to determine, and the court should not be second-guessing them on that or any of the other issues that are presented to them.
At the end of the hearing, the trial court again noted that both sides had distinct positions, and a motion for new trial shouldn’t be a vehicle merely for overturning the unanimous decision of 12 jurors as to what the preponderance of the evidence in this case showed. The court declined to supplant the jury’s weighing of the evidence with one theory of the case rather than the other. In short, the trial judge explicitly stated that he wouldn’t reweigh the testimony given or resolve any conflicts in the evidence, noting that the trial court failed to perform its duty to exercise discretion and weigh the evidence in its consideration of the general grounds. As a result, it appeared that the trial court failed to apply the proper standard in assessing whether the evidence was contrary to the jury’s verdict as requested by the plaintiff in his motion for new trial.
The portion of the trial court’s order denying the plaintiff’s motion for new trial under O.C.G.A. § 5-5-20 and O.C.G.A. § 5-5-21 was vacated, and the case was remanded to the trial court for consideration of the plaintiff’s motion under the proper legal standard. Thom as v. Accurate Steel Rule Cutting Die, 375 Ga. App. 457, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 207, 2025 LX 79796 (Ga. App. May 23, 2025).
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