Court Opinion

ID: 9624516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:06:24.352159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:51:34.364696
License: Public Domain

*41Mikell, Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s affirmance of the judgment entered on the jury’s verdict in Case No. A07A1785 because I believe that there is no evidence that Davis was an agent or employee of the cab companies. Because a reversal of the judgment in the main claim would render the RICO claim moot, I would dismiss the cross-appeal. Accordingly, I also dissent from the majority’s decision to reverse and remand the RICO claim for a new trial.
1. As the majority correctly points out, “the doctrine of respon-deat superior applies only where the principal retains the right to control the time, manner, and method of employment of the agent.”30 Especially pertinent here, in order to prove that a taxicab driver was operating a vehicle in the course of the owner’s business and within the scope of the driver’s employment, the plaintiff must prove both that the employer owned the vehicle and that the driver was the owner’s employee.31 In the case at bar, the taxicab was co-titled in AACCI’s and Hafezalkotob’s names and bore the ACC insignia, thus providing sufficient evidence of ownership by the cab companies. But even construed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence showed that neither cab defendant exercised control over the time, manner, or method of Davis’s operation of the taxicab.
Davis testified that although ACC had a dispatcher, Davis never called him to obtain passengers. If the dispatcher called, Davis would answer, but he testified that “nine times out of ten, they didn’t call me for no passenger.” Instead, Davis picked up fares on his own. Davis did not pay ACC a fee for picking up any passengers, and he never paid any money directly to either ACC or AACCI. According to Davis, Hafezalkotob paid stand dues and insurance coverage. Davis did not know the amount of insurance coverage because the “only thing [he] was doing was leasing the cab.” Davis also testified that when he and Hafezalkotob met with Terefe/Bekele, she gave Davis no instructions other than to report “if anything happened to the cab.” The only other witness who testified on this issue was Cheru Terefe, Terefe/Bekele’s husband, who was, at various times, president of both AACCI and ACC. According to Terefe, ACC did not pay its drivers any salary or commission, did not exercise any control over when or where a driver worked, and did not tell the driver what to do on a daily basis. Terefe testified that Davis never paid any money to ACC; rather, Hafezalkotob paid the stand dues of $153 per *42month to ACC. Terefe further testified that ACC did not hire Davis, either as an employee or as an independent contractor.
The evidence thus demonstrates that Davis leased the taxicab from a third party and paid fees to that third party, not to the cab companies. Davis picked up whomever he wished and did not depend on the ACC dispatcher for passengers. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, I do not believe that evidence that Davis chose to pick up passengers dispatched through ACC supports a finding that ACC controlled or supervised him. Rather, I believe that the evidence shows conclusively that ACC permitted Davis to drive the taxicab but imposed no rules on the manner in which he operated his business. For these reasons, I believe that this case is controlled by precedents such as Red Top Cab Co. v. Hyder,32 Hand v. Checker Cab Co.,33 and Metro Taxi v. Brackett.34 In Red Top Cab Co., evidence of the cab company’s ownership of the taxicab was held insufficient to create a jury issue where the uncontradicted evidence showed that the driver leased the vehicle from the company and the company had no control over its operation.35 In Hand, summary judgment was affirmed based on evidence showing that the cab company leased the cab to the driver on a week-to-week basis, gave the driver exclusive use of the vehicle, imposed no rules on the driver’s operation of the taxicab, and did not require the driver to accept dispatches.36 In Metro Taxi, relied upon by ACC and AACCI in their motion for j.n.o.v., a judgment entered on the verdict was reversed where the company owned the taxicab and leased it to the driver for a daily fee; the driver was not required to accept calls from the dispatcher; and the company exercised no control over where the driver operated.37 In my view, these cases are apposite and controlling.
Cases in which the evidence has been found sufficient to support a verdict stand in stark contrast to the three precedents discussed above. In Harper v. Samples,38 for example, the cab company owned the cab, and a supervisor from the company came to the scene of the collision in response to the taxicab driver’s call, authorizing the jury to find that the driver was an employee of the company and acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the collision.39 *43Similarly, in College Park Cabs v. Justus,40 evidence that the company owned the taxicab, combined with the driver’s testimony that she was “just a driver for the company” and was required to accept calls from the company dispatcher while she was on duty, was sufficient to authorize a finding that the driver was the company’s employee.41 The evidence of employment presented in Harper and College Park Cabs is lacking in the case at bar. The evidence does not permit an inference that Davis was required to accept calls from the dispatcher.
Decided March 21, 2008
Reconsideration denied April 11, 2008
Accordingly, I believe that the trial court erred in denying the cab companies’ motions for directed verdict and j.n.o.v. because the evidence presented at trial demanded a finding that Davis was neither an agent nor an employee of the cab companies, such that they could not be held vicariously liable for Davis’s conduct.
2. For the reasons stated above, I do not believe there is evidence to support a finding that Davis and ACC operated a joint venture, which is the alternate theory on which the verdict was based. “A joint venture arises where two or more parties combine their property or labor, or both, in a joint undertaking for profit, with rights of mutual control.”42 The element of mutual control is essential to a joint venture.43 Because ACC did not exercise any control over the manner in which Davis performed his work, I do not believe that the cab companies can be held liable under a joint venture theory for the injuries caused by Davis.44

Case No. A07A1786

3. In the cross-appeal, while I agree with the general principles of law espoused in Division 3,1 dissent from the majority’s reversal of the judgment and grant of a new trial to Parham on his RICO claim. I would dismiss the cross-appeal because I do not believe that the verdict on the personal injury claim is supportable as a matter of law.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Johnson joins in this dissent.
*44Sidney L. Moore, Jr., for appellants.
Charles A. Mathis, Jr., for appellee.

 (Citations omitted.) Logan v. American Bankers &c. Co., 168 Ga. App. 647, 650 (2) (310 SE2d 263) (1983).

 Clark v. Atlanta Veterans Transp., 113 Ga. App. 531, 533-534 (148 SE2d 921) (1966).

 130 Ga. App. 870 (204 SE2d 814) (1974).

 216 Ga. App. 116 (453 SE2d 138) (1995).

 273 Ga. App. 122 (614 SE2d 232) (2005).

 Red Top Cab Co., supra.

 Hand, supra.

 Metro Taxi, supra at 123. See also Johnson v. City Wide Cab, 205 Ga. App. 502, 504 (2) (422 SE2d 912) (1992) (insignia on taxicab is not sufficient to support a verdict).

 164 Ga. App. 511 (298 SE2d 29) (1982).

 Id. at 512 (1).

 227 Ga. App. 66, 67*(2) (488 SE2d 88) (1997).

 (Punctuation omitted.) Id. at 68-69 (2).

 (Punctuation and footnote omitted.) Rossi v. Oxley, 269 Ga. 82 (1) (495 SE2d 39) (1998).

 Id. at 83 (1). See also Kitchens v. Brusman, 280 Ga. App. 163, 167 (3) (633 SE2d 585) (2006).

 See Kitchens, supra.