Title: McGee v. Bolen
Citation: 369 So. 2d 486
Docket Number: 50831
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: March 21, 1979

369 So. 2d 486 (1979) John H. McGEE et al. v. Wilburn L. BOLEN. No. 50831. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 21, 1979. *487 Parsons &amp; Matthews, Thomas M. Matthews, Jr., Wiggins, for appellants. Bryant &amp; Stennis, Grier J. Gregory, Gulfport, Williams S. Murphy, Lucedale, for appellee. Before SMITH, P.J., and SUGG and COFER, JJ. COFER, Justice, for the Court: The cause, a suit for damages for the wrongful death of a child, in the Circuit Court of George County, terminated in a jury verdict for the defendant Wilburn L. Bolen, from which the parents of the deceased child, John H. McGee, et ux., suing on behalf of themselves and the child's minor brothers, have taken this appeal. They assign several errors, among them being the court's failure peremptorily to instruct the jury to find for the plaintiffs. Concluding that this assignment is well taken, we do not reach a discussion of the other errors assigned. Plaintiff parents and all three of their children, residents of Stone County, had gone on the morning of December 5, 1976, to visit plaintiff Mr. McGee's sister, Mrs. Slade, and her family residing in George County south of Lucedale. After their lunch, the parents and their hostess, Mrs. Slade, left to go to the Pascagoula River to return Mrs. Slade's husband, who was fishing there. They left the McGee children, including Jeremy, whose wrongful death is the subject matter of this suit, and two of the Slades' children, with an older sister of the Slade children, Charlotte Elizabeth Ford, who was then thirteen years of age. On that date, December 5, 1976, Jeremy McGee was about four and a half years old and his brothers Brian and Clay, were five years old and between seven and eight years old, respectively. They had a foster brother, Chuck Boone McGee, who was eleven years of age. The Slades' younger children, Kevin, Randy, and Kelly appear from the record to be of ages comparable to the McGee children. As Charlotte was doing some house cleaning, Chuck, being also in the residence, the children had been playing in the yard area of the house, but moved down to, or to the edge of, Highway No. 63, described as a very busy highway about fifty feet from the Slade residence. *488 The area of the highway in front of the Slade residence is in a valley between downward slopes, south from Lucedale and north from Pascagoula. It may be said at the threshold that appellee's driving experience, the safe condition of his tires and brakes, that the day of the accident was sunny, and that the highway was dry, are matters which are established by the uncontradicted evidence. That the paved portion of highway 63 is twenty-two feet wide and the shoulder of the highway, though varying in width, is around ten feet wide are facts likewise well established. Appellee, with his mother in the passenger side, came southward over the crest of the hill about a half a mile from where the children were located. At his first observation of the children, he was not exceeding the fifty-five mile per hour speed limit, but, by means of brakes or other deceleration, he reduced the speed of the car to twenty-five miles per hour about a quarter of a mile north of the children, and thenceforth maintained that speed until he struck the child, Jeremy, applying his brakes about fifteen or twenty feet before the impact, and laying down skid marks approximately six feet in length. The child's body was knocked by the impact approximately fourteen feet to the front and left of the point of impact and his shoes were found off his feet. As appellee had come over the hill and they saw the children beside the road, his mother said to him, "Wilburn, there is little children on the side of the road; whatever you do, you be careful," and, every now and then afterward, she would say to him, "Wilburn, be careful, son, whatever you do." Appellee said that, of the several children, three or four in number, on the right (driver's) side of the highway, two were standing on the shoulder about a foot from the pavement of the highway, (elsewhere he had them two feet from the highway), and there was another child down the embankment from the pavement. He described these children as being a little girl about eleven years old, one little boy about eight or nine years of age, and the child down the embankment, a boy, was about seven or eight years of age. There were two children, according to appellee, on the east shoulder of the highway, about nine or ten years of age and "maybe six" years old, and they were about two feet from the edge of the pavement and were almost directly across the highway from the children discussed in the paragraph next above. He saw the children on his left side of the highway when he was about a quarter-mile away from them and, from then on, the children on both sides never passed from his view. As appellee's car approached, the small girl on the right side held out her hand in front of the child next to her as if to restrain him from entering the road. As appellee approached the site from the north, one Chambers was driving an automobile northward and the two cars (the latter traveling thirty to thirty-five miles per hour) met and passed each other, one to two car lengths north of where the impact took place. We come directly to Jeremy. Appellee, as an adverse witness, testified that the child suddenly darted out in the road, first seen by appellee when he was eight or nine feet of the center line on the edge of the highway (shown above to be twenty-two feet wide), and that he was about one foot from the center line when he was hit, the impact being at the left headlight of the vehicle, which was burst by the blow. He testified he fully applied his brakes the instant he saw the child and he made no effort to steer to the right or to the left. There was nothing to obstruct appellee's vision, it was winter, and the road shoulders were bare. He testified that the shoulder dropped off in a deep bank, but he could see the child he earlier testified to seeing, down the embankment. He further testified: Later he testified as a part of his defense case. Asked on direct examination to tell again how the occurrence happened, he said: On cross examination, this exchange took place. Appellee's mother, Mrs. Voncille Bolen, testified that as they came to the top of the hill north of the fatal accident scene, she saw two children on the left side of the road and three children nearly about up the right side of the road and then, further on down, there was another one. As to Jeremy, she said: On cross examination, she gave answers as follows: The driver of the northbound vehicle, Willie Chambers, testified for appellee. He saw the children as he headed northward down the long slope about three-fourths of a mile away and they were then running back and forth across the highway, but as he drew nearer some were on one side and some on the other. Shown a photograph in evidence (Exhibit 6(b) of plaintiff), the witness pointed to a place where he answered that the child was lying down, "trying to hide or something. Trying to duck from the rocks or whatever they were throwing." Then his attention was called to what appeared to be some bushes, and the witness did not remember observing them, but he answered that it was "between those two clumps of bushes" is where he was playing. An examination of this exhibit reveals that the road shoulder, the drainage area alongside the road, and a further space lay between these clumps of small bushes and the highway pavement. *492 On cross examination he said the child was not "flat out" but was squatting, not behind any trees, right down under the hill, appeared to be ducking from something being thrown at him; he guessed the child was four or five feet from the paved road. He said the child was right next to the mailbox appearing in the exhibit. He could testify to seeing only two children on the west side, the little child being one of them. Thus, it is seen that there is no material conflict to be resolved by the jury on the issue of negligence. The eye witness testimony was all given by appellee and his witnesses. The uncontradicted proof is that appellee saw this group of children more than a quarter of a mile before he reached them, and from then they were never out of his sight before the tragic impact with Jeremy. In ample time and space before he reached them he reduced his speed to twenty-five miles per hour which speed he maintained until the instant he saw Jeremy and then in the next instant as he hit the child, he skidded his wheels for approximately six feet. While there was no proof that he saw Jeremy until the matter of seconds before he struck him, Jeremy was one of the group of children alongside the road. To make more serious still the burden that was upon appellee, in the midst of these children some on one side of the highway and some on the other side, and them about two feet only from the paved portion of the busy highway, appellee was forced to meet a vehicle in the northbound lane, thereby further restricting his space of maneuvering his vehicle. Speed is a relative thing. Under some circumstances, a reduction of speed to twenty-five miles per hour seems a snail's pace speed has been launched upon. In other cases, the present being one, it becomes very fast, too fast. Appellee assumed these children would give him a clear path. This assumption proved error and, in addition, was an assumption constituting a luxury to which he was not entitled. Moak v. Black, 230 Miss. 337, 92 So. 2d 845 (1957). In 1917, when motor vehicles were scarce, this Court said in Ulmer v. Pistole, 115 Miss. 485, 76 So. 522 (1917): This legal principle pronounced in the earlier days of automobiles has been cited a number of times since. It was noticed and quoted in Williams v. Moses, 234 Miss. 453, 106 So. 2d 45 (1958), and we took note of this fact, and quoted the same from the Williams case, in Peel v. Gulf Transport Co., 252 Miss. 979, 821-22, 174 So. 2d 377, 388 (1965). Our jurisprudence, as reflected in decisions presently herein to be noticed, is that drivers of automobiles are charged with the duty to expect children to do the unexpected, to understand that they may do the ununderstandable and unpredictable, and will act upon a second's impulse. Appellee drove under this responsibility, and had he discharged the duty he owed to those he acknowledges he knew to be at the threshold of the lane on which he was advancing, it follows that this care toward them would have avoided the sad catastrophe reflected in the record. The facts here remove this case from those protecting the motorist from liability for injury to children suddenly darting from behind obstructions of view into the path of the driver. Although not himself visible to appellee he was among those who were visible to him and was entitled to the stern care and caution that belonged to those clearly within appellee's view. *493 This Court, in Avery v. Collins, 171 Miss. 636, 157 So. 695 (1934), recognized the law in the following language: It is thus that it was the driver's duty, if necessary, to come to a full stop, in protecting the pedestrian. In McMinn v. Lilly, 215 Miss. 193, 205, 60 So. 2d 603, 609 (1952), the pronouncement next above from the Avery case came under review, and was cited with approval, and we observed that it had also received this Court's approval in Stevenson v. Robinson, 37 So. 2d 568 (Miss. 1948). Then in Moak v. Black, supra, both the Avery and McMinn cases were noticed and followed. Questions of negligence are for the jury's determination. Mississippi Code Annotated, section 11-7-17 (1972). Where, however, there is no issue of fact, then the court determines the negligence question. In Mercy Regional Medical Center v. Doiron, 348 So. 2d 243 (Miss. 1977), it is said: "There was no conflict in the evidence so the issue of negligence was for the court." (348 So.2d at 244). In that decision, Paymaster Oil Mill Co. v. Mitchell, 319 So. 2d 652 (Miss. 1975); City of Greenville v. Laury, 172 Miss. 118, 159 So. 121 (1935); and Supreme Instruments Corp. v. Lehr, 190 Miss. 600, 199 So. 294 (Sugg. of Error Sustained), 1 So. 2d 242 (1941) are cited and the following language is quoted from the Laury opinion. Appellee sets out the ingredients of the test, if such there is, which must be present before a peremptory instruction may be granted, as follows: Accepting appellee's test as governing this case, it is our opinion that the peremptory instruction requested should have been granted, there being according to our view no issue or question as to appellee's negligence calling for determination of a jury. The case is reversed and judgment here rendered in favor of appellants on appellee's liability and remanded for a new trial on the issue of damages only. REVERSED AND RENDERED AS TO LIABILITY AND REMANDED FOR TRIAL AS TO DAMAGES. *494 PATTERSON, C.J., and SUGG, LEE and BOWLING, JJ., concur. ROBERTSON, P.J., and WALKER and BROOM, JJ., dissent. SMITH, P.J., dissents in part. ROBERTSON, Presiding Justice, dissenting: I am unable to agree with the majority that the judgment for Defendant Bolen, based on a jury verdict, not only should be reversed but also that a peremptory instruction on liability should be granted the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' case was based solely on negligence. In their declaration, the plaintiffs alleged that the 22-year-old driver was negligent: in not maintaining a proper lookout, in not keeping his car under control, in not reducing his speed sufficiently under the circumstances, and in not foreseeing possible danger. The plaintiffs charged that defendant's negligence was the sole proximate cause of the accident. I differ with the majority wherein they say that "there is no issue of fact" to be decided by the jury, that as a matter of law the defendant is liable. I think that this was a classic case for the jury, and that we are substituting our judgment for that of the jury. Mississippi Code Annotated section 11-7-17 (1972) provides: We are violating one of our most time-honored and cardinal rules of appellate review when we ignore all the testimony and reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom supporting the jury verdict, and substitute our judgment for that of the jury on questions of negligence. In Shelton v. Coleman, 323 So. 2d 90 (Miss. 1975), we said: In Gulf Oil Corporation v. Turner, 235 So. 2d 464 (Miss. 1970), this Court said: See also: Sprayberry v. Blount, 336 So. 2d 1289 (Miss. 1976); Hubbard v. Morris, 275 So. 2d 858 (Miss. 1973); Maness v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 271 So. 2d 418 (Miss. 1972); McCollum v. Randolph, 220 So. 2d 310 (Miss. 1969); Spell v. Ruff, 217 So. 2d 7 (Miss. 1968); Southern Pine Superior Stud Corp. v. Herring, 207 So. 2d 632 (Miss. 1968); Dendy v. City of Pascagoula, 193 So. 2d 559 (Miss. 1967). The undisputed and uncontradicted testimony of the driver, defendant Bolen, and his mother, Voncille Bolen, a front seat passenger, was that they were proceeding south on busy state highway 63, shortly after noon on Sunday, December 5, 1976. *495 As they crested a hill about 1/2 mile from the scene of the accident, they saw three children playing on the right side of the highway, and two children on the left side of the highway. Bolen slowed his car from 50 miles to 25 miles per hour, and proceeded cautiously, watching the children on both sides of the highway and also an approaching car going north. Willie Chambers, the driver of the northbound car, testified that he noticed some children on both sides of the highway; that he slowed his car to about 35 miles per hour at the time he passed Bolen going south. His testimony was that they passed about one or two car lengths north of the accident scene. Chambers looked in his rearview mirror and saw Bolen's brake lights go on. Mrs. Voncille Bolen testified: In the majority opinion, contrary to our long-standing and oft-repeated rule of appellate review, all of the testimony supporting the jury's verdict is ignored, and then from the vantage point of hindsight and the opportunity for cool deliberation in our cloistered chambers, we reach the studied conclusion that 25 miles per hour was too fast, and that defendant Bolen should have expected "children to do the unexpected, to understand that they may do the un-understandable and unpredictable, and will act upon a second's impulse." It was Bolen's duty, according to the majority, "if necessary, to come to a full stop, in protecting the pedestrian." The testimony was that four-year-old Jeremy was a very small child, and, according to witness Chambers coming from the opposite direction, was squatting down and attempting to hide from the other children. The pictures introduced into evidence show an embankment very close to the paved highway, and Chambers said Jeremy was on the embankment, not the shoulder of the highway. Bolen and his mother testified that Jeremy could have suddenly darted from behind the other children in an attempt to cross the highway. In other "darting child" cases, this Court has consistently ruled that it was a question for the jury and we have heretofore affirmed the jury's verdict whether it be for the plaintiff or defendant. In McMinn et al. v. Lilly, 215 Miss. 193, 60 So. 2d 603 (1952), a 9-year-old bicycle rider was hit from the rear by a truck driven by defendant. After a full trial, the jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff and this Court affirmed. In McMinn, we said: In Gordon, Minor, by Next Friend, v. Carr, 226 Miss. 836, 85 So. 2d 490 (1956), a jury verdict for the defendant was affirmed by this Court. In Gordon, this Court said: In my opinion, it makes no difference whether a child suddenly runs from behind a parked car into the path of an approaching car, as in Gordon, or whether a child suddenly runs from a concealed position down an embankment or behind other children, as in the case at bar. In either case the child was hidden from the view of the approaching motorist. In Morris, by Next Friend, v. Boleware, 228 Miss. 139, 87 So. 2d 246 (1956), an eight-year-old child was injured when she ran in front of a car driven by the defendant at an intersection in Jackson. The jury returned a verdict for the defendant, and we affirmed. In deciding Morris, this Court said: In the face of our consistent holdings that the question of negligence vel non is for the jury to decide, and that unless the jury's verdict is against the overwhelming weight of the evidence we will affirm, I can't understand why in this case we ignore all of the evidence supporting the jury's verdict and hold that the defendant is liable as a matter of law, because when confronted with an emergency situation not of his making he didn't in some way completely avoid an unavoidable accident. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court based on a jury verdict for the defendant after a full trial on all issues of negligence. WALKER and BROOM, JJ., join in this dissent. *497 SMITH, Presiding Justice, dissenting in part: Whether the evidence in this case created an issue for the jury on the question of liability is, in my judgment, extremely close. In the situation reflected by the record, it is my view that a reversal upon the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence is warranted. However, I consider that the facts and circumstances disclosed by the evidence require that the case be remanded for a retrial on all issues, not simply as to damages alone.