Title: Leonetti v. Boone
Citation: 74 So. 2d 551
Docket Number: N/A
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: August 31, 1954

74 So. 2d 551 (1954)
LEONETTI
v.
BOONE.

Supreme Court of Florida. Special Division B.
August 31, 1954.
Arthur James Sims, Stuart, and Mizell &amp; Carmichael, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Earnest, Lewis, Smith &amp; Jones, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
SEBRING, Justice.
The appeal is from an order granting a new trial in favor of the defendant in a personal injury action.
Peter Anthony Leonetti, as plaintiff below, sued C.A. Boone to recover damages resulting from the alleged negligent operation of a motor truck owned by Boone, which was at the time of a collision with plaintiff's car being operated "through [Boone's] certain agent and employee, one Ollie Haynes." In his answer to the complaint the defendant Boone denied that the said Haynes was the agent or employee of the defendant or was operating the motor truck with defendant's knowledge and consent, either express or implied; or was operating the vehicle in any way connected with the business or interest of the defendant.
The parties went to trial on the issue of negligence vel non, and on the issue which we have stated above. At the trial all of the evidence was to the effect that the driver of the defendant's truck was not the agent *552 or servant of the employer; and that the truck was not being driven with the defendant's knowledge or consent, either express or implied. Moreover, there was no evidence introduced at the trial to support the theory of entrustment of the vehicle to the driver.
After the evidence was in the trial court charged the jury, among other things, as follows:
The verdict by the jury was in favor of the plaintiff. Subsequently, on motion of the defendant, the trial court granted a new trial, stating in his order:
The sole question on the appeal is in respect to the propriety of the order granting the new trial.
We find no error in the order appealed from. The presumption to which the trial court referred in its charge derives from section 51.12, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A., which provides:
The general rule in respect to the effect of a presumption such as is here involved may be stated as follows:
In Johnson v. Mills, Fla., 37 So. 2d 906, 907, this Court has held in respect to the specific statute involved in this litigation: "This presumption is a rebuttable one. In the case at bar, we are not left to an inference or presumption. The uncontradicted evidence shows that McDaniel was operating the truck which caused the injury without the owner's consent and that he, in no way, was acting as an agent or servant of appellee when the injury occurred. When this evidence was presented the presumption vanished from the case. See Vol. 9, Blashfield, Cyclopedia of Automobile Law and Practice, Part 2, § 6064." (Emphasis supplied.) The conclusion of the trial court that there was in the case "insufficient evidence to take the case to the jury" was accordingly affirmed.
The decisions in this jurisdiction with respect to another statutory presumption of liability, in negligence actions against railroad companies, are to the effect that the presumption vanishes as soon as any material evidence on the issue is introduced by the defendant railroad, "regardless of whether they make a case against themselves" or fail completely to rebut the presumption in fact, and in those circumstances it is error to charge the jury that the presumption disappears only "when the railroad adduces substantial evidence that the employees were not negligent." Powell v. American Sumatra Tobacco Co., 154 Fla. 227, 17 So. 2d 391, 392; Loftin v. Skelton, 152 Fla. 437, 12 So. 2d 175; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Voss, 136 Fla. 32, 186 So. 199; Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Bailey, 5 Cir., 190 F.2d 812. Section 768.05, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A.
Although the presumption created by the railroad statute is not analogous in all respects to the one presently under consideration, it necessarily follows, from the decision in Johnson v. Mills, supra, [37 So. 2d 907,] that if the presumption under section 51.12, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A., "vanished from the case" upon presentation of the evidence in rebuttal, then any suggestion to the jury that the presumption might be taken into consideration along with the evidence would be prejudicial, at least where the evidence on the issue is of the character involved in the case at bar.
The court below, in its order granting new trial, correctly stated the rule that in the circumstances of this case "the burden of proving the driver's rightful possession of the motor vehicle is cast upon the plaintiff, just as if the presumption had never existed." Whether, under the involved statute, the mere introduction of "any material evidence" on the issue would require the same result, as is true under section 768.05, supra, is not here decided.
The appellee attempts, by way of cross appeal, to raise the point that the trial court erred in refusing to rule affirmatively on his motion for directed verdict on the issue of lack of authority, renewed after verdict and argued simultaneously with request for new trial, to which motion no reference is made in the order for new trial. Whatever may have been his right to a directed verdict under the evidence in the case, it is plain that under our statutes the point is not properly presented on an appeal from an order granting a motion for new trial. Sections 59.06(1) and 59.07(4), Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A. For an order granting a new trial is appealable only by virtue of a specific statutory denomination as such, and the review of such an order is limited to the extent that not even the grounds of the motion for new trial other than those "specified by the trial *554 judge, as a basis for the order granting the new trial, [can] be considered as arguable" upon a cross assignment of error. Martin v. Meyer, Fla., 68 So. 2d 597. This view of the limited scope of an appeal from an order granting a new trial is consistent with the nature of the order in question. In a case where the trial court reserves its ruling on a motion for directed verdict until after the verdict on the merits of the cause is reached by the jury, an order denying the motion for directed verdict, being interlocutory or supplemental in character, is reviewable only in connection with an appeal from the final judgment in the cause when one is entered. Cf. Wolfe v. City of Miami, 114 Fla. 238, 154 So. 196.
The order appealed from should be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
TERRELL, Acting Chief Justice, HOBSON, Justice, and PATTERSON, Associate Justice, concur.