Title: Teele v. Gravlee
Citation: 313 So. 2d 169
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 8, 1975

313 So. 2d 169 (1975)
Mrs. C. E. TEELE
v.
Mrs. Joyce GRAVLEE.
SC 1078.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 8, 1975.
M. Clay Alspaugh, Birmingham, for appellant.
Bert P. Taylor, Birmingham, for appellee.
MERRILL, Justice.
Plaintiff, Mrs. C. E. Teele, sued her neighbor, Mrs. Joyce Gravlee, claiming damages for personal injuries when defendant's Pontiac Tempest ran into plaintiff's house trailer. The verdict was for defendant and plaintiff's motion for new trial was overruled.
Plaintiff and defendant lived in adjoining house trailers and plaintiff's trailer was slightly downhill and fifty feet from defendant's. On July 21, 1973, defendant drove up in front of her trailer, stopped the car, turned off the motor, pulled up the emergency brake and got out of the car. Her nine-year-old daughter was still in the car. Defendant reached to close the car door but the car had begun to move downhill. *170 She jumped back into the car but failed to stop it before it collided with the end of plaintiff's trailer. Defendant and her daughter were not hurt. The collision made a dent on the bumper of defendant's car, a dent on the tow bar of plaintiff's trailer, and moved some of the bricks under the trailer a few inches.
Plaintiff testified that she was knocked out of bed, several dishes were broken and she began suffering back pains. The investigating officer and defendant testified that they asked plaintiff is she was injured and she answered that she was not. Defendant also talked with her on July 23 and she made no complaints. Plaintiff denied making the statements attributed to her on July 21 just after the collision.
Plaintiff makes two assignments of error and argues each of them. The first is that the court erred in overruling her motion for a new trial and the ground stated in brief "that the verdict of the jury was not sustained by the preponderance of the evidence."
It has long been the rule in this state that the credit and weight of the evidence is for the jury.
Proof in a negligence action is rarely absolute. Necessarily, a jury cannot depend on the basic facts alone; inferences must be drawn therefrom. Consequently, when the proof in a negligence suit reveals such a state of facts, whether controverted or not, from which different inferences and conclusions may reasonably be drawn, then the question of liability must be left to the jury. Gleichert v. Stephens, 291 Ala. 347, 280 So. 2d 776.
The following from Kilcrease v. Harris, 288 Ala. 245, 259 So. 2d 797, is applicable here:
Here, the credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence was decided by the jury in favor of the defendant. In view of the verdict and the action of the trial court in overruling the motion for a new trial, we find no reversible error in the first assignment of error.
The second assignment charges that the court erred in overruling plaintiff's objection to that part of defendant's closing argument wherein counsel for defendant argued that "back injuries and lawsuits run hand in hand." Actually, the words objected to were "back injuries in lawsuits, I am afraid, run hand in hand." Defendant says that the next statement of counsel explains the comment. In briefs, counsel for both sides quote more of the argument either before or after the comment and we copy that part of the argument from the record:
In Adams v. State, 291 Ala. 224, 279 So. 2d 488, this court said:
The following statement from Birmingham Electric Co. v. Perkins, 249 Ala. 426, 31 So. 2d 640, has been restated in at least three subsequent cases:
And later in the opinion, this court said:
This requirement of substantial prejudice as a prerequisite to reversal on the basis of counsel's argument to the jury is stated in our recent cases of Adams v. State, 291 Ala. 224, 279 So. 2d 488; Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Phillips, 286 Ala. 365, 240 So. 2d 118; Louisville &amp; N. R. Co. v. Wade, 280 Ala. 453, 195 So. 2d 101; St. Clair County v. Martin, 273 Ala. 302, 139 So. 2d 617, and Occidental Life Insurance *172 Co. of Cal. v. Nichols, 266 Ala. 521, 97 So. 2d 879.
In our opinion, counsel was not stating a fact not in evidence, but was merely commenting on a valid inference from the evidence, and drawing a conclusion from the evidence based on his own reasoning. Also, from the record as a whole, we cannot say that it affirmatively appears that the argument objected to was probably prejudicial to appellant.
Affirmed.
HEFLIN, C. J., and MADDOX, JONES and SHORES, JJ., concur.