Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company v. Henry Earl Palmer

On Petition for Rehearing.

PER CURIAM.

In our opinion we had stated that “the trial took place two and one-half years after the accident * * That is erroneous. The accident occurred on June 12, 1956, and the jury returned its verdict on December 10, 1957, approximately one and one-half years after the accident.

The appellant correctly points out that Whiteman v. Pitrie, 5 Cir., 1955, 220 F.2d 914, 918, recognized a scope of appellate review of a ruling on a motion for *211new trial broader than simply for abuse of discretion. It treated abuse of discretion as an error of law, referred likewise to failure to exercise the court’s discretion upon such a motion, and stated that this Court could review questions of law presented by the decision of the district court on the motion for new trial. Our statement that the denial of a motion for new trial “is subject to extremely limited review for abuse of discretion,” while admittedly somewhat ambiguous, was not meant to limit the rule as stated in Whiteman v. Pitrie, supra. The petition for rehearing is

Denied.