Court Opinion

ID: 9856519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:49:34.43804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:55.089594
License: Public Domain

HiggiNS, J.,
dissenting: I realize there are times and places in which it would be an act of negligence for the owner to stop his automobile in gear with the emergency brake set and the engine running — for example: in a children’s playground. But if the vehicle is taken to a garage for repairs, left at the repair counter in the custody of the service superintendent who raises the hood for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of a shortage in the turn signal, such is neither the time nor the place to charge the owner with negligence.
The plaintiff called the defendant as an adverse witness and elicited from him the following testimony:
“I drove my car in the garage and talked to the service manager and advised him that the turn signal would not work. He came up to the car, opened the hood and looked under the hood and there was Mr. Buchanan, I believe it was, that was with him at the time, and they could not find the trouble under the hood. So then Mr. Buchanan said, T know where it is; it’s under the dash.’ So he goes around and gets in the car on the passenger’s side and begins to check the wires under the dash and he continued to check them, and at that time it seemed that I might be in his way, so I got out of the car and let them have it.”
The mechanic, Mr. Buchanan, testified. “. . . I was not there when the car came in. I came down . . . from working on a car on the second floor . . . Mr. Deason (service manager) called my attention to the car. ... I did not look under the hood on this car. As to whether anyone else looked under the hood . . . not while I was there. . . . Mr. Parks was in the car before I got in. He got out before I slid across. ... He got out and went off and then I slid further on over. Then I came across the tunnel and let myself down on top of the accelerator. At that time the car went forward.” The *213mechanic testified he didn’t know, and made no effort to ascertain, whether the engine- was running or the vehicle was in gear.
The only possible discrepancy between the plaintiff’s evidence from the adverse witness Parks and the witness Buchanan, the mechanic, is whether Buchanan was the mechanic with the service manager, Deason, when the service manager “opened the hood.” Mr. Buchanan testified that he came down from the second floor. The defendant, and the vehicle were already there; that the service manager was there. He further testified the hood was not raised while he was present. Mr. Parks was positive that the hood was raised by the service manager and he believed Mr. Buchanan was there. Mr. Buchanan does not say, and no one else said, the manager did not raise the hood. The difference in the testimony of Parks, the adverse witness, and Buchanan is more apparent than real. It is not surprising that Mr. Parks could not be positive as to whether Mr. Buchanan was present when the service manager raised the hood. The accident happened on April 13, 1961. The suit was not brought until April 10, 1964, (three days before the action was b.arred) and the trial did not take place until June, 1965. It is of minor significance whether the mechanic present with Mr. Deason was Mr. Buchanan or some other. The manager did not testify.
I do not agree with the Court’s opinion that the evidence of Mr. Parks, the defendant, may be disregarded on the question of non-suit. He was a plaintiff’s witness — adverse to be sure — hence his testimony possibly would not bind the plaintiff to the extent he could, not show the facts to be otherwise. But to the extent Mr. Parks’ evidence is not contradicted and the facts not shown to be otherwise, the plaintiff is bound by the testimony since he made it a part of his case. Whether the hood was up — and Mr. Parks says Deason raised it — and neither Deason nor anyone else says he didn’t, is material only to show that the defendant knew when he delivered the car to the garage that its agents had knowledge the engine was running. Hence he had a right to assume and to act on the assumption that mechanics working on a vehicle would take all necessary precautions against the dangers incident to a running engine of 360 horsepower. The defendant could not reasonably foresee that (of all persons) a mechanic would lie down on the accelerator of an engine of such power.
The law places before the plaintiff two hurdles: (1) showing defendant was negligent in delivering to the garage his vehicle in gear with the engine running; (2) showing that the owner might reasonably foresee that an automobile mechanic would be so negligent (not to step on) but to lie down on the accelerator which *214furnished gas to a running engine. “But it is generally held, that in order to warrant the finding that negligence, or an act not amounting to wanton wrong, is the proximate cause of the injury, it must appear that the injury was the natural and probable consequence of the negligence or wrongful act, and that it ought to have been foreseen in the light of the attending circumstances.” Batts v. Faggart, 260 N.C. 641, 133 S.E. 2d 504; Butner v. Spease, 217 N.C. 82, 6 S.E. 2d 808; Beach v. Patton, 208 N.C. 134, 179 S.E. 446; R. R. v. Kellogg, 94 U.S. 469.
Under the circumstances disclosed by this record, I think if the first hurdle does not stop the plaintiff, the second certainly does. I vote to affirm the nonsuit.