Case Title: Haggard v. Jim Clayton Motors, Inc.

Citation: 393 S.W.2d 292

Docket Number: 

State: tennessee

Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Date: 1965-08-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
393 S.W.2d 292 (1965) Gladys H. HAGGARD, Petitioner, v. JIM CLAYTON MOTORS, INC., et al., Respondents. Nan M. LEWIS, Petitioner, v. JIM CLAYTON MOTORS, INC., et al., Respondents. Supreme Court of Tennessee. August 16, 1965. *293 Claude K. Robertson, Robert L. Crossley, Fowler, Rowntree & Fowler, Knoxville, for petitioners. Thomas W. Thomson, Knoxville, for Jim Clayton Motors, Inc. Wallace F. Burroughs, Knoxville, for H. Scott Boyer, Jr. WHITE, Justice. These are companion suits filed in the Circuit Court for Knox County by Gladys H. Haggard and Nan M. Lewis, petitioners here, to recover from Jim Clayton Motors, Inc., and H. Scott Boyer, Jr., respondents here, damages sustained when Mrs. Haggard's automobile, in which Nan M. Lewis was riding as a passenger, was involved in a collision with a Renault automobile owned by Clayton Motors and driven at the time of the accident by one Howard Norman Daniel. The defendant Boyer, respondent here, was a delinquent bill collector for defendant Clayton Motors, Inc. and other motor *294 companies in the vicinity. Norman Daniel and Billy McCoy, two of Boyer's friends, occasionally helped him make collections. The plaintiffs, petitioners here, charge in their declaration that the accident proximately resulted from the combined negligence of (1) Daniel in the operation of the vehicle; (2) the defendant Boyer, as the alleged agent of Clayton Motors, Inc., in entrusting the automobile to Daniel and McCoy with knowledge that neither of the two men were qualified operators of motor vehicles; and (3) the defendant Clayton Motors, Inc. in entrusting the automobile to Boyer with knowledge that he was not a qualified operator of a motor vehicle, was addicted to drink, associated with persons of dissolute character, and habitually permitted such persons to drive automobiles in his possession. In the trial court the defendants filed special pleas, the substance of which was to deny that Boyer was an agent of the defendant Motor Company; to deny all allegations of negligence on their part; and to deny the giving of possession of the automobile to Daniel and McCoy. In addition thereto, the defendants asserted that the Renault automobile had been stolen from Boyer on the night of the accident. Daniel, who is in prison, was not made a defendant and did not testify. The case was heard by the judge and jury and the verdict of the jury for Mrs. Haggard in the amount of $3,000.00, and in favor of Miss Nan M. Lewis in the amount of $7,000.00, against both defendants, was returned by the jury and was approved by the judge, and a money judgment rendered thereon in said amount. Upon their motion for a new trial being overruled, they appealed to the Court of Appeals and assigned error. In that court it was held that the trial judge should have directed verdicts for both defendants at the close of all of the proof. The cases were accordingly reversed and dismissed. A petition for the writ of certiorari was filed by Mrs. Haggard and Miss Lewis in this Court, insisting that the Court of Appeals, among other things, erred in holding that the statutory presumption arising from proof of Clayton Motors, Inc. ownership of the car, under T.C.A. § 59-1037, was displaced as a matter of law when evidence to the contrary was introduced. Specifically, it is petitioners' insistence that such proof of non-agency must come from witnesses whose credibility is not in issue, and who are not contradicted; but that in this case the only such proof comes from the defendants Clayton Motors and Boyer, and McCoy, who is an admitted criminal. It was undisputed that defendant Clayton owned the automobile which was involved in the collision, and for the purposes of this petition, we must assume that the injuries sued for were caused by the negligence of the driver, Daniel. Upon proof of these facts, without more, there arose under our statute (T.C.A. § 59-1037), as amended, a prima facie case of presumption that the automobile was being operated by the owner or by his servant in his service. Sadler v. Draper, 46 Tenn. App. 1, 19, 326 S.W.2d 148 (1959). The rule in this State, where evidence is offered in rebuttal to the presumption created by T.C.A. secs. 59-1037, 1038, is that uncontradicted and unimpeached evidence causes the presumption to disappear. Hill v. Harrill, 203 Tenn. 123, 133, 310 S.W.2d 169 (1957); Bell Cab & U-Drive-It Co. v. Sloan, 193 Tenn. 352, 356, 246 S.W.2d 41 (1951); Long v. Tomlin, 22 Tenn. App. 607, 619, 125 S.W.2d 171 (1938); Woody v. Ball, 5 Tenn. App. 300, 304 (1927). However, when the witness offering the evidence in rebuttal of the presumption is contradicted as to material matters, his credibility is a matter for the jury, which determines whether his evidence overcame the presumption. Jones v. Agnew, 197 Tenn. 499, 502, 274 S.W.2d 825 (1954); Smith v. Phillips, 43 Tenn. App. *295 364, 309 S.W.2d 382 (1956); McConnell v. Jones, 33 Tenn. App. 14, 228 S.W.2d 117 (1949); McParland v. Pruitt, 39 Tenn. App. 399, 284 W.S.2d 299 (1955); Sadler v. Draper, supra; McAmis v. Carlisle, 42 Tenn. App. 195, 300 S.W.2d 59 (1956); Green v. Powell, 22 Tenn. App. 481, 124 S.W.2d 269 (1938); Wright v. Bridges, 16 Tenn. App. 576, 65 S.W.2d 265 (1933); Williams v. Bass, 8 Tenn. App. 482 (1928). This means that, before a trial judge may take the question from the jury, the evidence must be such that it can be said, as a matter of law, that there was no agency. In Phillips-Buttorff Mfg. Co. v. McAlexander, 15 Tenn. App. 618 (1932), the court said: Once the witness is impeached on any material point, then the trial court may not hold as a matter of law that the statutory presumption has disappeared and direct a verdict. The Court, in Welch v. Young, 11 Tenn. App. 431 (1930), explained: Judge Anderson, after holding in Southern Motors, Inc. v. Morton, 25 Tenn. App. 204, 154 S.W.2d 801 (1941), that the statutory presumption had disappeared, explained the effect of the presumption: The Court of Appeals correctly stated that the evidence necessary to rebut the presumption must be "uncontradicted and come from witnesses whose credibility is not in issue." However, the court, in applying the rule, characterizes the testimony of Clayton as "unimpeached and uncontradicted," and, therefore, held that the presumption "vanished into thin air," and that the trial court should have directed a verdict in Clayton's favor. Conceding that the only evidence offered was that Daniel was on a lark of his own and not on any business of Clayton, still, under the circumstances of this case, it would have been improper for the trial judge to have directed a verdict. Both Clayton and Boyer were involved in discrepancies. Clayton testified that Boyer was not an employee, that Boyer "had done less than maybe one, two, or three little collections that he brought in, one or two items of payment, and maybe he repossessed one car, possibly. He then admitted that Boyer had discretion to either repossess or just collect the debt without repossession, and his business records were introduced showing that he gave cash advances to Boyer repeatedly, not just a few times. Boyer admitted that Clayton paid him substantial sums and that Clayton "was paying me rather well for what I was doing," and that Clayton was his "biggest customer." The witness McCoy testified that he often went with Boyer to make repossessions, and went because he was paid to go. Clayton testified that the automobile was turned over to a Mr. Arthur Thomas and Boyer, and that Thomas was to repair the car. He also testified that Thomas was better qualified to work on the Ferlic clutch than any of Clayton's employees. The witness Thomas testified that the car was not turned over to him, that Boyer brought the car by his home, and he looked at the car as a favor to Boyer, and that the only time he discussed the matter with Clayton was afterwards when Clayton asked him what was wrong with the clutch, and Thomas told him that nothing was wrong with it. He also testified that he did not charge for his services, but that he only did such work as a hobby, and that he only had a general idea what a Ferlic clutch is. Clayton was very evasive as to the amount of time that the car was in Boyer's *297 possession, saying it could have been one week and it could have been four weeks. Yet Boyer testified that the length of time was ninety days, and that Clayton was "mistaken." All of these contradictions were directly connected to the issue of agency. It is unnecessary to delve further into the record to see that the answers of these two witnesses were evasive and contradictory. However, one further example is sufficient to show their demeanor before the jury. Clayton testified that in 1960, six mechanics comprised his service staff, and that none were qualified to work on the clutch. He then admitted on cross-examination that he had advertised that seventeen trained mechanics were employed: After being impeached in this manner, it is not difficult to see how the jury could have disbelieved this witness. The fact that the witness McCoy, who testified for plaintiff, stated that he and Daniel borrowed the car from Boyer to go to a dance at Maryville, Tennessee, did not destroy the statutory presumption. Although a party may not attack the credibility of his own witness, he is not bound by the witness' testimony: The witness McCoy was a convicted forger and murderer, and had been declared infamous by the Knox County Criminal Court. An authenticated copy of the record containing a judgment declaring him infamous was introduced by defendants' counsel for the apparent purpose of casting a reflection upon his credibility as a witness pursuant to T.C.A. § 40-2712. The witness, therefore, was impeached by a "mode recognized by law." Welch v. Young, 11 Tenn. App. 440, and the Court could not take the matter of his credibility from the jury. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals was in error in holding that the trial court should have directed verdicts, and the cases were properly submitted to the jury. For these reasons the judgments of the Court of Appeals are reversed and those of the trial court reinstated. An order will be entered accordingly. BURNETT, C. J., and DYER and CHATTIN, JJ., concur.