Court Opinion

ID: 9585913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:05:06.274619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:16.811026
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
In Chadwick v. Miller, 169 Ga. App. 338 (-SE2d-) (1983), this court reviewed the evolution of its previous rulings on the law of legal accident, and therein approved the strict definition applied in such cases as Morrow v. Southeastern Stages, 68 Ga. App. 142 (22 SE2d 336) (1942) and Toles v. Hair, 83 Ga. App. 144 (63 SE2d 3) (1951). Because the instant case falls within the ambit of the rulings in Morrow and Toles, I concur with the result reached in the majority opinion’s judgment of reversal and also concur with what is said in Judge Sognier’s special concurrence.
There is no disagreement with the proposition that where an injury or incident involves two parties only, where the evidence demands a finding that either the plaintiff or the defendant, or both, was negligent, and that negligence proximately caused the injury or incident, a jury instruction on legal accident is error. Where, however, the evidence merely authorizes, rather than demands, such a finding, a charge on legal accident is allowable if in fact the issue is raised by the evidence, because the corollary of that evidentiary equation is that a finding that neither party was negligent would also be authorized.
The convolution of the doctrine of legal accident developed in cases in which the injury or incident actually involved three parties, one of which was not a party to the action. These third party cases appear to consist of two general factual structures: (1) where the third party was the driver of the vehicle in which one of the parties to the action was a passenger; and (2) where the third party was in a separate vehicle. With regard to the first factual structure, this court in both Morrow v. Southeastern Stages, supra, and Toles v. Hair, supra, held that even though the passenger was without fault, if the evidence demands a finding that the driver of the passenger car or the driver of the other vehicle, or both, was negligent and the negligence proximately caused the injury or incident, a defense of legal accident is unavailable. With regard to the second factual structure, however, this court in the past has formulated the rule that where the evidence *351authorizes a finding that even though the separate third party was or may have been negligent and same was the proximate cause of the injury or incident, and neither the plaintiff nor the defendant was, legal accident is available. See Boatright v. Sosebee, 108 Ga. App. 19 (132 SE2d 155) (1963); Lynch v. Broom, 158 Ga. App. 52 (279 SE2d 302) (1981); Elder v. MARTA, 160 Ga. App. 78 (286 SE2d 315) (1981). Unfortunately, some decisions of this court overlooked the distinction between the two factual structures and applied the rule controlling the second structure to cases involving the first structure. See Garrett v. Brannen, 164 Ga. App. 10 (296 SE2d 205) (1982), involving an infant passenger plaintiff, in which any negligence of her father could not be imputed to her, but which case was overruled in Chadwick v. Miller, supra. (In all third-party cases, of course, if the evidence demands a finding that either the plaintiff or the defendant, or both, was negligent and the negligence was the proximate cause of the injury or incident, legal accident is unavailable.)
In summary, as I understand it, the majority opinion in Chadwick v. Miller, supra, and in the instant case, both of which I would categorize as first structure cases, reached out and overruled many second structure cases; therefore, the extended rule now appears to be that legal accident can no longer co-exist and is now unavailable in all third party cases, where the evidence demands a finding that either the plaintiff or the defendant or the non-party third party was negligent and that same was the proximate cause of the injury or incident. (It does not exclude legal accident where the evidence merely authorizes such a finding, because of the corollary that a finding of no negligence of any party would also be authorized.) The primary effect of that decision thus is to remove legal accident as a defense in cases involving the second factual structure as well as the first factual structure discussed above. I have some reservations against disallowing legal accident in the second structure line of third-party cases, as this removes from the jury one additional tool in formulating a verdict in complicated situations. As noted above, however, the instant case and Chadwick both are factually controlled by Morrow v. Southeastern Stages, supra, and Toles v. Hair, supra. Accordingly, I agree with the decision of reversal.