Court Opinion

ID: 9617759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:00:49.783907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:15.982722
License: Public Domain

Felton, Chief Judge,
dissenting. It is indisputably the law of Georgia that a host driver owes to a gratuitous guest no more than a duty to exercise slight care. It is also true that the law of this state is that a child of tender years occupies a gratuitous guest relationship by reason of the consent of his parent or guardian. Chancey v. Cobb, 102 Ga. App. 636 (117 SE2d 189). So it is the duty of this court to decide this case on the question whether the evidence authorized a finding of gross negligence on the part of Mrs. French. The finding of gross negligence was not authorized. The conduct of Mrs. French must be considered in two parts, one before Mrs. Stephens screamed and one afterwards. Under several decisions of this court which have not been criticised, modified or overruled the reaction of Mrs. French to the gagging or coughing of the child, Randy, while Mrs. Stephens was holding the five-month old plaintiff in her lap, was not gross negligence. Tucker v. Andrews, 51 Ga. App. 841 (181 SE 673); Harris v. Reid, 30 Ga. App. 187 (117 SE 256); Edwards v. Ford, 69 Ga. App. 578 (26 SE2d 306); Capers v. Martin, 54 Ga. App. 555 (188 SE 465). It is quite clear that the first phase of Mrs. French’s reaction was due to a natural and humane instinct. In the use of this term it was not the intent of the rulings stating the law that the responses to a stimulus in such case necessarily be reflex or spontaneous, or to pin the definition down to a scientific or mathematical formula. It stands to reason that under the circumstances here the conduct of Mrs. French in the first instance was not a violation of a duty to exercise slight care. It will be remembered that Mrs. French reduced speed from 35 to 10 miles per hour. Assuming that Mrs. French’s conduct in the first instance was the natural and proximate cause of Mrs. Stephens’ screaming, the evidence shows *67without dispute that there was some effort by Mrs. French to put on the brakes. The fact that she was not successful does not disprove the fact that the effort she made was not gross negligence. It was not the failure to exercise slight care. The question is whether slight care was sought to be exercised, not whether if it had succeeded, as intended, it would have avoided the injury.
Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Daniels, 8 Ga. App. 775 (70 SE 203) is not authority contrary to what is here held. Far from a case involving an exception to the general rule in gross negligence cases, as does the instant case (Capers v. Martin, supra, (Hn. 4) in which Judge Jenkins for the court stated: “The exception to this general rule ... is where the failure to look ahead arises from some sudden, natural, human impulse or emergency . . .”), the Daniels case involves ordinary negligence, as does Shockey v. Baker, 212 Ga. 106 (90 SE2d 654), and the alleged actions of the plaintiff in the Daniels case were attributed to the fright suffered by Daniels allegedly produced by the ordinary negligence of the railroad. In the instant case the driver of the automobile did not cause the choking of the child and she is not charged with ordinary negligence. Furthermore, in the Daniels case the plaintiff attempted to crank his automobile after the emergency was over and the only question for the jury was whether Daniels was excused from his rash act because he should not be charged with not remembering what he had done in fright caused by the railroad’s negligence. See also Hatcher v. Bray, 88 Ga. App. 344, 347 (4) (77 SE2d 64) and Judge Worrill’s dissent in McGowan v. Camp, 87 Ga. App. 671, 674 (75 SE2d 350).
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Jordan and Judges Eberhardt and Quillian concur in this dissent.