Case Title: Patricia Anderson and Nina Kelly v. Herbert Graham, Roger Raney and W. A. Raney d/b/a R & W Trucking Company, a Partnership

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1998-04-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
Patricia ANDERSON and Nina Kelly v. Herbert
GRAHAM, Roger Raney, and W.A. Raney d/b/a 
R & W Trucking Company, a Partnership

97-58                                              ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
                 Opinion delivered April 9, 1998


1.   Negligence -- burden on plaintiff to establish entitlement to directed
     verdict unless no rational basis for jury to believe otherwise. -- No
     matter how strong the evidence of a party who has the burden
     of establishing negligence and proximate cause as facts may
     comparatively seem to be, he is not entitled to have those
     facts declared to have reality as a matter of law, unless
     there is utterly no rational basis in the situation,
     testimonially, circumstantially, or inferentially, for a jury
     to believe otherwise.

2.   Trial -- defendant entitled to have jury assess credibility of plaintiff's
     case. -- The defendant is entitled to have the jury assess the
     credibility of the plaintiff's case even though the defendant
     offers no evidence himself; the jury may believe or disbelieve
     the plaintiff's witnesses irrespective of the fact that the
     evidence is uncontradicted and unimpeached.

3.   Evidence -- sufficiency of -- standard of review. -- Where sufficiency
     of the evidence is the issue on appeal, the standard of review
     is whether the verdict is supported by substantial evidence.

4.   Trial -- defendant under no obligation to present evidence contradicting
     plaintiff's case. -- The defendant is under no obligation to
     present any evidence contradicting the plaintiff's case; in
     appeals from a verdict for the defendant, the substantial-
     evidence rule cannot always be read literally, as the
     defendant may have introduced little or no proof, yet the jury
     found against the plaintiff; it makes little sense in such
     cases for the appellant to argue the strict application of the
     rule, insisting that a reversal is required because the
     defendant's proof failed to meet the substantial-evidence
     test, where the evident fact is that the plaintiff failed to
     convince the jury, or factfinder, of an essential element of
     proof.

5.   Evidence -- sufficient evidence to support jury verdict that appellee acted
     reasonably under circumstances. -- Where the appellate court
     discerned no admission of negligence on appellee's part in his
     explanation of the circumstances surrounding a vehicular
     accident; where appellee maintained that he did everything he
     could to avoid the accident; where there was evidence that the
     hill and the intersection were dangerous and that a driver
     using ordinary care could find himself unable to stop in time
     to avoid a car stopped at the intersection; and where one
     appellant said to the other while halted at the intersection
     that it was "a bad place to have to stop," there was evidence
     to support a jury verdict that appellee acted reasonably under
     the circumstances.

6.   Motions -- directed verdict -- denial of -- standard of review. -- The
     standard of review with respect to the denial of a plaintiff's
     motion for directed verdict is whether the defendant's case
     was utterly without a rational basis.

7.   Motions -- directed verdict -- new trial -- trial court did not err in
     denying either. -- Concluding that appellees' case was not
     utterly without a rational basis and that, regarding the
     denial of the new-trial motion, there was substantial evidence
     to support the jury verdict, giving the verdict the benefit of
     all reasonable inferences permissible under the proof, the
     supreme court held that the trial court did not err in denying
     either the motion for a directed verdict or for a new trial.


     Appeal from Lafayette Circuit Court; Phillip Purifoy, Judge;
affirmed.
     Stephen T. Arnold, for appellants.
     Dunn, Nutter, Morgan & Shaw, by: W. David Carter and Christie
G. Adams, for appellees.

     Robert L. Brown, Justice.
     Appellants Patricia Anderson and Nina Kelly appeal from the
denial of a motion for a directed verdict and denial of a motion
for a new trial.  They urge that each ruling constituted error by
the trial court.  We disagree on both counts and affirm.
     On September 14, 1992, Anderson and Kelly were the driver and
passenger, respectively, in a station wagon and had come to a stop
on Highway 82, a two-lane road in Stamps.  The reason for their
stop was that the vehicle in front of them had come to a halt to
make a left-hand turn at an intersecting street.  While they were
stopped, their car was hit from behind by appellee Herbert Graham,
who was driving an 80,000 pound tractor-trailer rig owned by
appellees Roger Raney and W.A. Raney d/b/a R & W Trucking Company,
a partnership (Raney).  Graham had just crested a small hill and
was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.  Following the
accident, both Anderson and Kelly were taken to the Magnolia
Hospital and treated in the emergency room.
     Anderson and Kelly subsequently filed suit against Graham and
Raney for negligence and asked for damages of $250,000 and
$1,343,978, respectively.  A three-day jury trial followed in which
Anderson and Kelly called Graham as an adverse witness as part of
their case-in-chief.  After they rested, they moved the court for
a directed verdict on the basis that Graham had admitted negligence
and, thus, the trial court should direct the jury to enter a
verdict in their favor as a matter of law.  The trial court
declined to do so.  Much of the plaintiffs' case and the defense
case consisted of medical records and deposition testimony of
doctors regarding the physical condition of Anderson and Kelly. 
Graham and Raney presented medical evidence of accidents after the
1992 accident at issue where Kelly had suffered injuries similar to
those complained of in this case.  On cross-examination of
Anderson, they also brought out that she was involved in a 1994
accident in which she injured herself in some of the same areas
complained of in the present matter.
     Following the verdict and entry of judgment, Anderson and
Kelly moved for a new trial, claiming that the jury verdict was
against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.  In
making their motion, Anderson and Kelly repeated that Graham had
essentially admitted both his negligence and the fact that the
accident was the proximate cause of their injuries.  The new-trial
motion was denied.  Anderson and Kelly now claim on appeal that it
was error for the trial court to deny both motions.
     We first consider the claim by Anderson and Kelly that it was
error to deny their directed-verdict motion.  We initially address
the uniqueness of such a motion.  In Morton v. American. Med.
Int'l, Inc., 286 Ark. 88,