Case Title: Foster v. Floyd

Citation: 163 So. 2d 213

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1964-04-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
163 So. 2d 213 (1964)
Johnny FOSTER et al.
v.
Kenneth Aubrey FLOYD.
4 Div. 132.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
April 9, 1964.
Quinton Bowers, Birmingham, John W. Gibson, Troy, Albert W. Copeland and Godbold, Hobbs & Copeland, Montgomery, for appellants.
John C. Walters and Oliver Brantley, Troy, for appellee.
LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.
This is a suit for personal injuries allegedly suffered by the plaintiff-appellee, Kenneth Aubrey Floyd, as a result of an automobile accident in Pike County, Alabama. Appellee instituted this suit in the circuit court of that county. His complaint consisted of two counts, a negligence count, and a count based on wanton misconduct.
*214 We are here concerned with the latter count, to which the judgment is referable. It alleged, in part, that the "defendants wantonly injured the plaintiff by wantonly running an automobile into an automobile which the plaintiff was driving."
There is no contention that the trial court erred in submitting the case to the jury or that the verdict was contrary to the evidence; therefore, we do not deem it necessary to set out the facts of the case in detail. At the time of the accident in question, the appellants were in an automobile belonging to the defendant, Johnny Foster. Appellee Floyd was driving his own car, and the two collided. There was some controversy over which of the appellants was actually driving the Foster car. At the time of the accident apparently Johnny Foster said that he was the driver; at the trial below, however, the evidence tended to show that Johnny Roy Foster, the son of Johnny Foster, was the driver, and the jury must have so found because it returned a verdict against both defendants in the amount of $3,500.
The appellants' assignments of error fairly raise the following questions:
1. Can the wanton conduct of the driver of an automobile be imputed to the owner on the same principles as the imputation of negligence?
2. Can a charge of wantonness against one defendant be properly joined in the same count with a charge of imputed wantonness against another defendant?
3. Was the verdict of $3,500 excessive?
There are several ways of approaching the first problem, all of which lead to the affirmance of the judgment of the court below. Perhaps the easiest of these is to begin by determining exactly what the doctrine of imputed negligence (and by corollary imputed wantonness) is; that is, whether it is a form of vicarious liability in and of itself, or simply a method of establishing an agency relationship. In various jurisdictions, it seems to have been treated both ways. The Alabama cases, however, treat it primarily as a shorthand, method of finding agency. In the case of Woodson v. Hare, 244 Ala. 301, 13 So. 2d 172, this Court was faced with a case of imputed negligence. In that case, we stated:
Speaking now as to whether or not wantonness can be imputed in the same manner as negligence is imputed, we hold that it can be.
While it was once generally held that an agent exceeded his authority in committing a wanton act, it is now generally held that wantonness does not in and of itself remove a particular act from the agent's scope of authority. 3 C.J.S. Agency § 258. See also 16 Ala.Digest, Principal & Agent, (1), and cases therein cited.
In our recent case of Aggregate Limestone Co. v. Robison et ux., Ala., 161 So. 2d 820, we considered the questions here presented, and there said:
As to the third question posed excessiveness of the damages: We appreciate the candor with which counsel for the appellants has approached the question of excessiveness of damages. It is, as the appellants point out, simply a question of whether or not the judicial conscience is quickened by the verdict. We feel that in this respect the decision of the court below must be allowed to stand. As we stated previously, the judgment is referrable to the wanton count and under such a count, of course, punitive damages may be assessed. Punitive damages need bear no particular mathematical relationship to actual damages. Bell v. Preferred Life Assur. Society of Montgomery, Ala., 320 U.S. 238, 64 S. Ct. 5, 88 L. Ed. 15. We do not find the verdict excessive.
We find no error in the record, and the case is due to be, and is, affirmed.
Affirmed.
SIMPSON, MERRILL and HARWOOD, JJ., concur.