Opinion ID: 1573959
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the appeal relating to the bus interests

Text: Judgment went against the appellants, Kepple Roland (owner of the school bus) and the Board of Education of Owen County, jointly and severally, along with Nettie Hughes (owner of the Thunderbird) and her son, Danny, driver of the car. On this appeal Roland and the Board of Education present the following grounds upon which they consider themselves entitled to a reversal of the judgments against them: (1) Error in excluding evidence of a statement made by Claude Ferrell; (2) the driver of the school bus was guilty of no negligence; (3) plaintiffs were permitted to inject the fact that appellants were covered by liability insurance; (4) there was no evidence of probative value showing any negligence of appellants; (5) verdicts in favor of the bus passengers against the owner and operatives of the bus are inconsistent with the jury's verdict awarding damages to the estate of Claude Ferrell, the bus driver. The first point advanced by appellants Roland and the Board of Education relates to the court's refusal to admit evidence of a statement made by Claude Ferrell, the bus driver, shortly after the accident. The statement, as purportedly made to witness William DeWitt, Director of Pupil Personnel for the Board of Education of Owen County, was placed in the record by avowal. In relating the incident, the witness had said that he approached the school bus as it was at rest against the tree, before any of the pupils had gotten out of the wrecked bus, and that Ferrell made a statement to him: Q.45 What did he [Ferrell] say concerning the bus? A. I asked him first how he was and he said he was pinned to the bus and that his leg hurt him. I said `What happened to you, Claude?' and he said `He hit me and knocked me over here,' and nodded toward the car in the field. Q.46 Did you see the car in the field toward which Claude Ferrell nodded at that time? A. Yes, that was the first time I had seen the car in the field. Q.47 What kind of a car was it, if you know? A. It was a Thunderbird. A fairly new model. Other testimony of the witness lends support to the fact that the foregoing statement of Ferrell was made within less than five minutes after the accident occurred. Appellants Roland and Board of Education urge that the statement made by Ferrell was admissible as part of the res gestae, and cite Ison v. Mullins, Ky., 336 S.W.2d 599 in support of their contention. The appellees counter by calling attention to Honaker v. Crutchfield, 247 Ky. 495, 57 S.W.2d 502, and Cumberland Gasoline Corporation v. Fields' Adm'r, 258 Ky. 417, 80 S.W.2d 28. For appellees it is urged that Ferrell's statement was in response to interrogation, and thus lost its spontaneity. Whether a particular statement may be admissible as a res gestae exception to the hearsay rule has arisen many times in this and other jurisdictions. The general rules are fairly well established, but their application in particular cases raises difficulties, as is to be seen from the many texts and court opinions on the subject. In Preston and Caldwell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 406 S.W. 2d 398 (decided June 10, 1966) is found a recent exposition of the factors to be considered when testing the admissibility of a claimed res gestae statement. It is particularly noteworthy that spontaneity, as opposed to mere proximity in time, is a most important consideration. Some of the elements which may point to lack of spontaneity are:    lapse of time between the main act and the declaration, the opportunity or likelihood of fabrication, the inducement to fabrication, the actual excitement of the declarant, the place of the declaration, the presence there of visible results of the act or occurrence to which the utterance relates, whether the utterance was made in response to a question, and whether the declaration was against interest or self-serving. 31A C.J.S. Evidence § 419, p. 1029. There is no doubt that the quoted statement qualifies as to time and place. That it is self-serving is not sufficient to destroy its quality as res gestae. Although the statement was in response to an inquiry it hardly may be said that there was such an interrogation as would remove the declarant from the mental attitude of expostulation influenced by the excitement and stress of the event itself. It is our view that the proffered evidence should have been admitted as part of the res gestae. It then remains to inquire whether the rejection of the evidence was prejudicially erroneous. Of course the refusal of the evidence could not have affected appellants Hughes adversely, since it merely tended to place culpability on Hughes, and the jury found Hughes blameworthy anyway. But the same may not be said as to the jury's finding against the bus interests. It will be remembered that there was dispute in the evidence as to whether the car collided with the bus at all. The only basis upon which the jury could have found against the bus interests was to conclude that the bus driver had failed in the exercise of his high degree of care after the encounter between the car and bus. It may be that the jury could have found that the collision between the vehicles, if any, was so slight as not to afford causative basis for the erratic course of the bus after the collision. The jury may have drawn the inference from the testimony that the bus driver had ample opportunity to reduce the speed of the bus, or to regain full control of its movements, or both, and thus have prevented the collision with the tree and the resulting injuries. It seems clear that the jury's decision in this regard may well have been influenced by its own conclusion as to the force and extent of the collision  therefore, the res gestae statement of Ferrell was of vital significance and should have been submitted to the jury as touching on the question of liability of the bus interests. The relevance of the Ferrell statement, as we have said, pertains to the question of liability  not the question of damages. We are reversing so much of the judgment as imposes liability upon appellants Roland and the Board of Education, for a new trial on the question of liability only. If the jury's verdict at a new trial fixes liability upon these bus interests, the trial court will award judgment against them in the amounts fixed in damages by the verdicts at the second trial. If the bus interests are absolved of liability by the verdict on a new trial, judgment will be entered in their favor. It is our view that the granting of a partial new trial in the circumstances presented comports with the purpose of CR 59.01. Cf. Scuddy Mining Company v. Couch, Ky., 295 S.W.2d 553; 14A Ky.Digest, New Trial. The second point advanced by appellants Roland and the Board of Education is substantially included in the fourth point they present, and we shall discuss them together. The appellants assert that the physical facts show conclusively that the bus driver was free of negligence. We do not think so. There was dispute as to whether the bus was entirely on its side of the road when the Hughes car was passing; the accumulated slush in the roadway was not so convincingly established as the point of impact as to foreclose negligence on the part of the bus driver. In any event, the evidence is clear that it was not the impact between the car and the bus which caused the injuries. The jury had a right to believe that as between the bus driver and the passenger there was a failure on the part of the bus driver to exercise the high degree of care owed the passengers  as distinguished from the rules of ordinary care respecting the reciprocal duties of the bus driver and the operator of the car. Appellants rely upon Greyhound Corporation v. Allen, Ky., 353 S.W.2d 558. Significantly it is to be observed that in that case the court remarked: Apparently it is plaintiffs' argument that if the driver had better control of the bus he would not have run off the road and turned over. The answer is that the driver's subsequent loss of control was clearly shown to have been caused by the impact and not by the earlier manner of operating the bus. Id., Ky., 353 S.W.2d at p. 560 (Emphasis added.) In the case at bar it is not shown  clearly or otherwise  that the subsequent loss of control was caused by the impact. It is our view that the evidence was sufficient to warrant submission to the jury of the issue as to negligence of the bus driver toward the passengers on the bus. During the course of the trial some of the student claimants gave evidence which conflicted with prior written statements they had given. Counsel for appellants Roland and the Board of Education undertook to impeach these witnesses by reading excerpts from the prior statements. Thereupon it was brought out by interrogation of the students that the statements had been furnished to an adjuster for the insurance company carrying the liability insurance on the bus. The court admonished the jury that it could not consider the matter of insurance as affecting the merits of the case. We think this case is ruled by the rationale of Triplett v. Napier, Ky., 286 S.W.2d 87. The matter of insurance was not injected into the case except in effort to show bias and interest of the adjuster who took the statements  statements which contained recitations favorable to the bus interests, and which recitations were asserted by the witnesses to be incorrect. The adjuster did not testify in the case. In these circumstances, we hold that there was no error in permitting the explanation of the statements and the circumstances in which they were given. In this same connection, it is claimed in brief for appellants Roland and Board of Education that one of appellees' counsel made inflammatory remarks suggesting insurance in his closing argument. The short answer to this is that there is no transcript of the argument in the record, nor any showing that the claimed argument was made. The claimed error is not available for appellate review. The final point advanced by the bus appellants is their assertion that the verdict in favor of the Ferrell estate is inconsistent with the verdicts in favor of the students. Reliance is had upon Greyhound Corporation v. Leadman, Ky., 285 S.W.2d 177, but the case is not in point. In Leadman the plaintiff had sued the bus driver and the bus owner; the jury's verdict absolved the driver but imposed responsibility on the owner. Obviously the owner's liability was purely derivative, so the verdict absolving the driver necessarily absolved the owner. Here the situation is different. The passengers did not sue the bus driver, nor did the verdict undertake any finding of his liability to them. The litigants appear to recognize that a different degree of care was due from the bus driver (and the owner and lessee of the bus) to the passengers than was due from the bus driver to the driver of the Hughes car. The double-standard of care as between passengers and highway traffic was recognized in Conley's Adm'r v. Ward, Ky., 291 S.W.2d 568. [1] We think the evidence in the case at bar clearly warrants the inference that although Hughes' negligence precipitated the erratic actions of the bus, the driver of the bus had ample opportunity to regain control of the vehicle or reduce its speed or both, so as to avoid injury to the passengers. Thus the verdict is not inconsistent on its face.