Title: Shannon v. Hollingsworth
Citation: 279 So. 2d 428
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: June 7, 1973

279 So. 2d 428 (1973)
Thomas Lee SHANNON
v.
Peggy Joy HOLLINGSWORTH.
SC 11.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 7, 1973.
*429 Hogan &amp; Smith, Birmingham, for appellant.
Dunn, Porterfield, McDowell &amp; Scholl, Birmingham, for appellee.
HEFLIN, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, wherein a complaint was filed by Thomas Lee Shannon, who had been injured in an automobile collision, against Peggy Joy *430 Hollingsworth and Daniel Albert Jones. An amended complaint was later filed, striking Daniel Albert Jones as a party defendant.
The appellant-plaintiff, Thomas Lee Shannon, was a passenger in, but not the owner of, an automobile being driven by Daniel Albert Jones, and they were on the way to a dance at Oporto Armory at the time of the accident. They had gone by the home of Roger McAllister, a friend of appellant-plaintiff, at the latter's request and the driver, Daniel Albert Jones, was following the directions of appellant-plaintiff Shannon as to how to get to McAllister's home. They left to go to Oporto Armory. Because Daniel Albert Jones was not familiar with the area, he continued to follow the directions of the appellant-plaintiff Shannon.
In a residential section of the City of Birmingham, at the intersection of 5th Avenue North and 79th Street, North, which contains no traffic control device whatsoever, the automobile in which the appellant-plaintiff was riding collided with an automobile driven by the appellee-defendant, Peggy Joy Hollingsworth. Miss Hollingsworth (who had married George William Knotts between the date of the accident and the date of the trial and was known as Mrs. Knotts at the trial) who was traveling east on 5th Avenue, testified she was aware of headlights of the Jones automobile 75 to 100 feet from the intersection. However, she stated, "The next time I noticed that Jones auto was when it was just right in my face"; that she did not apply the brakes or have time to apply her brakes before the accident occurred. Jones was traveling south on 79th Street and skidmarks evidenced the application of his brakes. The jury found for the defendant Hollingsworth and the lower court ordered that the appellant-plaintiff Shannon was not entitled to a recovery. It is from this judgment that appeal was taken.
The appellant's-plaintiff's first contention is presented by his assignments of error numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6, whereby he argues that the lower court erred in charging the jury as follows:
Appellant-plaintiff Shannon argues that the submission to the jury of the issue of appellant's-plaintiff's control or right to control the operation of the automobile was error in that there was no evidence from which a jury could find that the appellant-plaintiff had exercised or had a right to exercise such control. It is not disputed that "in order to create the imputation of negligence of the driver to the passenger, the passenger must have assumed control and direction of the vehicle or must have some right to a voice in the control, management or direction of the vehicle". Johnson v. Battles, 255 Ala. 624, 52 So. 2d 702 (1951). The issue thus presented is whether there was any evidence from which the jury could have concluded *431 that the appellant-plaintiff Shannon had exercised or had a right to exercise such control. There was no evidence from which it could be inferred that Shannon had the right to exercise such control from ownership or otherwise. The testimony of Daniel Albert Jones relative to the exercise of control and direction by Shannon was as follows:
The testimony of the appellant-plaintiff also shed light on the issue whether the appellant-plaintiff exercised any control over the operation of the Jones vehicle:
This evidence clearly shows that the appellant-plaintiff did have a voice as to the route which the driver followed, however, there is absolutely no evidence from which the jury would have found that the appellant-plaintiff had any control over the speed at which the automobile was traveling, the yielding or failure to yield the right of way at intersections, or any other of the elements which contribute to the manner in which the automobile proceeded along the route he selected. It should be noted that the word "direction" referred to in the above quote from Johnson does not signify the line or course upon which anything is moving, but rather guidance or management. The control exercised by the passenger must be over some element contributing to the operation of the automobile which bears a direct relationship to the cause of the accident. It would certainly be improper to maintain that a passenger who had assumed the control of the regulation of the car's air conditioner was chargeable with the driver's negligence in an accident caused by the latter's excessive speed. It is no less improper to charge a passenger with the negligent manner in which the driver operates an automobile over a route selected by such passenger when the passenger has assumed only the direction of the route. A navigator of an airplane is not responsible for a pilot making a faulty landing.
The appellant-plaintiff Shannon in the instant case had assumed control over *433 only the route followed by the driver, and this court has been unable to find any evidence in the record from which the jury could have found any causal connection between the route followed and the cause of the accident and injuries. For this reason the control exercised by appellant-plaintiff was not of such a nature as to authorize the imputation of the driver's negligence to the passenger-appellant-plaintiff Shannon under the factual setting of this case.
Appellant-plaintiff next contends that the lower court erred in that portion of its oral charge in which it submitted to the jury the question of contributory negligence on the part of the passenger, appellant-plaintiff. The law in Alabama relative to the contributory negligence of a passenger-plaintiff was stated in King v. Brindley, 255 Ala. 425, 51 So. 2d 870 (1951) as follows:
The appellant-plaintiff, while recognizing the above statement of law as valid, bases his argument on the premise that there was no evidence upon which the jury could have found that the appellant-plaintiff was contributorily negligent, and, hence, submitting the question to the jury, via the lower court's oral charge, was error. The uncontradicted testimony of the appellant-plaintiff, Thomas Lee Shannon, was that the nearest thing he could remember was approximately a block before the accident, at which point in time, as far as the record reveals, no circumstances had revealed themselves which would have or should have suggested to a reasonable person that the vehicle was entering or about to enter a sphere of danger. This being so, no duty ever arose, on the part of appellant-plaintiff, to give any warning, protest or action as to the impending danger. Thus, the lower court did err in submitting the question of the appellant's-plaintiff's
*434 contributory negligence to the jury.
There can be no doubt that it is error to hypothetically instruct a jury on a state of facts when there is no evidence to establish them. Bailey v. Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, 261 Ala. 526, 75 So. 2d 117. However, the fact that a given charge is abstract is not available as reversible error unless it affirmatively appears from the record that the charge worked injury to the complaining party; such party's remedy being to request an explanatory charge. Bailey v. Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, supra; Jones v. Williams, 108 Ala. 282, 19 So. 317. However, in this instance the court is of the opinion that explanatory charges could not have eradicated the injury which resulted to Shannon from these erroneous instructions. Therefore this cause is reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
MERRILL, HARWOOD, MADDOX and FAULKNER, JJ., concur.