Title: Smith v. Johnson
Citation: 214 So. 2d 846
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: October 17, 1968

214 So. 2d 846 (1968)
Owen M. SMITH
v.
Drue Edward JOHNSON et al.
7 Div. 793.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 17, 1968.
*848 Walter I. Barnes, Gadsden, and T. J. Carnes, Albertville, for appellant.
Dortch, Allen, Wright &amp; Wright, Gadsden, for appellees.
PER CURIAM.
Appellant filed suit in the circuit court of Etowah County to recover damages which he alleges proximately resulted from a collision between his automobile, driven at the time by his wife, Opal Jolley Smith, and a truck driven by defendant Johnson, who, according to the allegations, was an agent or servant of defendant Cloud. The complaint, containing only one count, charged the defendants with negligence. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants. Plaintiff appeals.
Appellant complains by assignments of error Nos. 1 and 2 about certain statements in the oral charge of the trial court.
We have examined the record of the oral charge and find that appellant did not sufficiently reserve an exception to the part of the oral charge alluded to in assignment No. 1. The oral charge, although made a part of the record by statute, will not be reviewed here unless adequate exception is reserved. The exception being inadequate, nothing is here presented for review. Accident Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Feely, 279 Ala. 74, 181 So.2d 889(9). An exception designating only the subject treated by the court in an oral charge, or merely designating the beginning of part of the oral charge excepted to, is insufficient. Knowles v. Blue, 209 Ala. 27, 95 So. 481.
In Bean v. Stephens, 208 Ala. 197, 94 So. 173(3), the rule is thus stated:
It was also stated in Pollard v. Rogers, 234 Ala. 92, 173 So. 881(6, 7), as follows:
Appellant, in the instant case, in excepting, merely referred to the beginning and ending of what the court said. This manner of excepting does not meet the requirements of law. See, 2 Ala.Dig., Appeal &amp; Error, p. 631.
The basis of appellant's assignment of error No. 2 is the court's oral charge to the jury as follows:
We presume the trial court was alluding to Title 36, § 15(b), Code 1940, which provides that "the driver of any motor truck when traveling upon a highway outside of a business or residence district shall not follow another motor truck within one hundred feet, but this shall not be construed to prevent one motor truck overtaking and passing another. * * *" (This section of the Code was later amended to read "within three hundred feet," but this amendment does not apply in the instant case which was tried on March 2, 1967, whereas the amendment was approved on September 7, 1967.)
This instruction was irrelevant to the issues in the instant case. Defendants' truck was following plaintiff's automobile, which, in turn, was following another truck. The latter, or front truck, was not involved in the collision, nor was the owner or driver of the front truck made a party to this suit. The car and the last truck collided. The charge was misleading. It was harmless error. Rule 45, Revised Rules of the Supreme Court, 279 Ala. XXI, XLI.
We pause here to say that defendants, with the consent of the plaintiff and with the permission of the court, filed a plea as follows:
This plea embraced a plea of contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff, which, if sustained by the evidence and believed by the jury, would be a complete defense to the suit.
Appellant asserts in assignment of error No. 3, that the trial court erred in giving, at the instance of defendants, a written charge, as follows:
It seems to us that the intended effect of this charge, while misleading and confusing in its phraseology, was to instruct the jury that under the plea of the general issue, the burden was on the plaintiff to prove the allegation of the complaint that defendants were guilty of negligence. The charge should not have been given because of its misleading and confusing tendency. It was subject, however, to an explanatory charge of plaintiff. We will not predicate error to reverse on giving this charge.
Appellant here contends in assignment of error No. 5, that the trial court erred to reverse in giving charge C, which we quote as follows:
We advert to Bradley v. Ashworth, 211 Ala. 395, 100 So. 663, where it was held that when the relation of bailor and bailee exists between husband and wife in the use of the husband's automobile, and there is no relation of servant and agent between the two, the husband-bailor "was entitled to maintain his action for any negligent injury done by defendant, a third person, to the subject of the bailment; but "he was not liable to defendant for his bailee's negligence, the subject of bailment not being under the control of his own servant, agent or employe. Defendant's recourse, if any under the facts, for the bailee's negligence was against the bailee."
In the instant case if the husband was bailor and his wife was bailee, plaintiff is not answerable for the negligence of his wife in the operation of the automobile; the plea of contributory negligence is not sustained.
We take cognizance of cases cited by appellee wherein, in Schoenith, Inc. v. Forrester, 260 Ala. 271, 69 So.2d 454(3), we said:
We also observed in Brown v. Southeastern Greyhound Lines, 255 Ala. 308, 51 So.2d 524(1), as follows:
We also observe that in Craft v. Koonce, 237 Ala. 552, 187 So. 730(2-5), this court said as follows:
See also, Slaughter v. Murphy, 239 Ala. 260, 194 So. 649(3).
We think the foregoing pronouncements in the cases of Schoenith, Inc. v. Forrester, Brown v. Southeastern Greyhound Lines, and Craft v. Koonce, all supra, have application to the instant case wherein the defendants assert that the negligence of Mrs. Smith, if any, in the operation of plaintiff's car was chargeable to the plaintiff and is available to them as a defense pursuant to their plea of contributory negligence which is embraced in the plea in short aforequoted.
Mrs. Opal Jolley Smith, wife of plaintiff and operator of plaintiff's automobile at the time of the collision, testified that on July 20, 1964, the date of the collision, she was driving her husband's car from her home in Gadsden to visit her relatives in Fort Payne, Alabama.
This evidence was neither contradicted, either expressly or inferentially, nor was there any attack on its credibility. There was no evidence that reflected on its credibility.
This evidence of Mrs. Smith served to overturn the presumption, arising from plaintiff's ownership of the involved automobile, that the witness at the time of the collision was acting as agent or servant of her husband.
Such presumption having been overturned, we hold that the trial court committed prejudicial error and to the injury of plaintiff in giving written charge C, supra, at the request of defendants.
It is ordered that the judgment for defendants be and the same is reversed and the cause remanded.
The foregoing opinion was prepared by B. W. Simmons, Supernumerary Circuit Judge, and was adopted by the court as its opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON, COLEMAN and KOHN, JJ., concur.