Court Opinion

ID: 9610742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:46:30.742601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:04.252996
License: Public Domain

Webb, Judge,
dissenting.
Waddell Kendrick brought suit against Diane Alexander and her father, Thomas Alexander, for damage to his automobile sustained in an intersectional collision between his automobile and the one driven by Miss Alexander. The trial court, sitting without a jury, found that "the evidence presented shows clearly that the defendant, Diane Alexander, violated the stop sign ordinance in failing to yield the right of way to plaintiff and further that plaintiff was not guilty of any contributory negligence.” Judgment was entered in *253Kendrick’s favor, and the Alexanders appeal. The majority, while conceding that the evidence does not show that Diane failed to stop at the stop sign, nevertheless conclude that there was evidence to support the trial court’s finding that she failed to yield the right of way to Kendrick. It is my view that that finding is clearly erroneous and totally unsupported in the record, and for that reason I respectfully dissent. CPA § 52 (a) (Code Ann. § 81-152 (a)).
There is no evidence whatsoever to show that Diane failed to stop at the stop sign. The uncontradicted evidence shows that she stopped at the stop sign; there were no approaching cars on the intersecting street from either direction; she entered the intersection, and when she had crossed one or more lanes of the four-lane intersecting street, Kendrick crested a hill on that street and ran into her. Both drivers testified that neither saw the other until Diane was well into the intersection after having stopped at the stop sign. The first either driver saw of the other was when Kendrick crested the hill and saw Diane already in the intersection approximately 150 feet in front of him. Prior to that time neither could have seen the other because of the hillcrest. Kendrick’s witness, Officer Hicks, stated that there would have been skid marks if Kendrick had applied his brakes, but there were no skid marks.
Prior Code Ann. § 68-1652, applicable at the time of this collision, provided: "(a) The driver of a vehicle shall stop as required by this law at the entrance to a through highway and shall yield the right-of-way to other vehicles which have entered the intersection from said through highway or which are approaching so closely on said through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard, but said driver having so yielded may proceed and the drivers of all other vehicles approaching the intersection on said through highway shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle so proceeding into or across the through highway, (b) The driver of a vehicle shall likewise stop in obedience to a stop sign as required herein at an intersection where a stop sign is erected at one or more entrances thereto although not a part of a through highway and shall proceed cautiously, yielding to vehicles not so obliged to *254stop which are within the intersection or approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard, but may then proceed.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Applying prior Code Ann. § 68-1652 to the undisputed facts of this case, it is clear that Diane did not fail to yield the right-of-way to Kendrick. Having complied with § 68-1652, she was entitled to proceed into the intersection as that Code section provides, and Kendrick was then required by that section to yield the right-of-way to her. Hence the finding by the trial court that she failed to yield the right-of-way is clearly erroneous; and the fact that the collision occurred in Kendrick’s lane of travel, that she went into a panic when the collision was imminent, and that she felt the collision was her fault, cannot shore up the judgment since that judgment was based upon an erroneous finding. "Being without support in the record that finding of fact is erroneous.” Clement Plumbing &c. Co. v. Goodwin, 130 Ga. App. 245, 246 (202 SE2d 684). "If the court’s judgment is based upon a stated fact for which there is no evidence, it should be reversed.” Pinkerton &c. Co. v. Atlantis Realty Co., 128 Ga. App. 662, 665 (197 SE2d 749).
I would therefore reverse the judgment of the trial court.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Bell and Presiding Judge Pannell concur in this dissent.