Court Opinion

ID: 9596683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:52:08.468244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:33.983505
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
The mother of the injured boy, representing herself and, as next friend, her son, contends that the father of the boy who was driving the father’s car at the time of the collision failed to supervise his son, failed to secure the car keys, and accepted responsibility and agreed to pay medical bills. She does not invoke the family purpose doctrine.
On the defendant father’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court compiled the undisputed material facts and concluded that, as a matter of law, the father was not negligent either in the supervision of his son or in securing the keys from him. The facts in this regard are that the son was unlicensed and was forbidden to drive the car, that he was not staying at home while his parents were out of town, and that although the keys were in the ignition, the car was in a locked garage, and the son had to turn off the house alarm and open the garage using a security code in order to get the car.
On appeal, the plaintiff does not challenge this recitation of the facts nor oppose the conclusion of law reached by the trial court based on them. Instead, she contends only that there are genuine issues of material fact requiring a jury to decide whether the father’s actions and words following the accident constituted an admission of liability which would sustain a verdict in her favor. On this separate point, the trial court had concluded that the undisputed facts concerning the post-collision reaction of the defendant in the circumstances could not, as a matter of law, be found to constitute an admission of liability.
Thus appellant would have us hold that even where there is no legal liability, a defendant may be held legally liable if he agrees to pay. There is no authority for this position. An admission of liability has efficacy only if there is liability. If there is none, then the statements of the alleged tortfeasor constitute merely expressions of sympathy, benevolence, or an acceptance of moral responsibility. The latter, which does not equate with the narrower requirements of legal liability, seems to be the intention here, although a jury could find that the father’s acts and words were intended for the purpose of sympathy or benevolence — or even an admission of liability. A jury would be needed to make a finding based on the credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence. White v. The Front Page, 133 Ga. App. 749 (213 SE2d 32) (1975).1 Cf. Rosequist v. Pratt, 201 *696Ga. App. 45 (1) (410 SE2d 316) (1991); Steverson v. Eason, 194 Ga. App. 273 (390 SE2d 424) (1990); Utz v. Powell, 160 Ga. App. 888, 890 (2) (288 SE2d 601) (1982). In these three cases, the circumstances were such that the court could conclude as a matter of law that the statements were not admissions of liability.* 2 But the first three possibilities would have no legal consequences, and the fourth is foreclosed in this case because appellant has accepted the trial court’s conclusion that there was no breach of duty on the part of the father.
I am authorized to state that Judge Ruffin joins in this special concurrence.

 My quarrel with Monson v. Brown, 163 Ga. App. 42 (1) (292 SE2d 486) (1982), is that the court held that defendant’s post-incident efforts and statements constituted an implied *696admission of liability. Whether it did or not should have been treated as a jury question, but the court left to the factfinder merely the ultimate issue of liability.

 The ruling in Deese v. Carroll City County Hosp., 203 Ga. App. 148, 150 (2) (416 SE2d 127) (1992), is built on the unstated conclusion that the action of the investigator did not constitute an admission of liability as a matter of law in the circumstances of that case.