Court Opinion

ID: 9636100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:16:46.653512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:42.455220
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, J., concurring. I agree that the judgment should be affirmed, for want of any substantial evidence to show willful and wanton misconduct on the part of the appellee. He merely stopped his car on the traveled portion of the highway and left it there while obeying the instructions of the police. This conduct does not seem to me to involve anything more than simple negligence, and consequently the court properly directed a verdict for the defendant. The majority opinion, however, does not stop at this point. It goes on to charge the appellant with an insurmountable degree of contributory negligence, for the reason that she rode with an intoxicated driver and failed to leave the car promptly when it was stopped on the highway. Both these points involve issues of fact upon which the evidence is in conflict. Since it is our duty, in reviewing a directed verdict, to consider the proof in the light most favorable to the appellant, I am unwilling even to intimate that these two considerations tend to support the action of the trial court; for upon those questions I think it would have been proper to submit the case to the jury, if any willful and wanton misconduct had been shown. McFaddin and Bobinson, JJ., join in this opinion.