Court Opinion

ID: 9824613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 10:58:49.338522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:53.225635
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In appellee’s brief we are taken to task for holding that the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence and was therefore wrong and unjust. Let us see. There were just two disinterested witnesses to the accident; one a white woman and one a white man. Hays, the driver of the truck, is not a party to the suit, is also an eyewitness, but may be classed as an interested witness, by reason of the fact that he is still connected with defendant. The other eyewitnesses are the plaintiff, Curtis Hosea, who has a suit against defendant growing out of the same accident. ' Both of these witnesses are negroes and at the time of the collision were in a five-passenger Pontiac car, being driven by one Robert Smith, a negro. The collision occurred at the intersection of Tenth street and Colonial drive in Tuscaloosa; the truck was turning in from Colonial drive towards the east and had reached about the center of Tenth street on its way to the south side of Tenth street and was in second gear; it was struck at the left front wheel, which was knocked under, the fender and lamp crumpled, and the axle and chassis bent. The impact threw the truck entirely around with its front towards the west and its right wheels resting against the south curb of Tenth street on the east of Colonial drive. The Pontiac was coming west on Tenth street, was struck about the right front door which was torn open and then proceeded in the same general direction but veered to the north curb, ran “a-straddle” the hedge bushes on west about seventy-five feet across the school yard and between two pines. The whole of the accident and facts leading to it occurred within less than three hundred feet, and if the Pontiac was traveling thirty-five miles per hour the time occupied from the passage of Mrs. Johnson’s ear by the Pontiac to the time of the collision was less than five seconds. *184If the Johnson car was going thirty miles per hour and was within fifty feet of the intersection of Tenth street and Colonial drive, at the time it was passed by the Pontiac, then the Pontiac must have been going more than thirty-five miles per hour, and from the time the Pontiac began to pass the Johnson car to the time of the collision must have been about one second. All the evidence tends to prove that when the negro, driving the Pontiac car, was passing the Johnson car, he was going more than thirty-five miles per hour; that he was on the left-hand side of the street, and when the two cars collided the Pontiac was still on the left of the center of Tenth street, when he should have been on the right. The passing of the Johnson car by the Pontiac at the place it did, on the wrong side of the street and at a speed of from thirty-five to forty miles per hour, was negligence. ' The testimony of the two disinterested witnesses, whose opportunity for observation was perfect, shows that the Hays truck had already entered the intersection from the right side of Colonial drive, in second gear, at a speed of eight to ten miles per hour, that at the time of the collision it was halfway across the center line of Tenth street going in the direction of the right side of Tenth street, the angle with the center line being about forty-five degrees.' In the absence of any evidence tending to show that Hays saw the Pontiac, he had a right to assume that the way was clear for him to proceed. There is in this evidence given by the only two disinterested witnesses no element of negligence on the part of Hays. On the contrary, the two interested witnesses, who testify for plaintiff, say that the Pontiac car had passed the Johnson car and gotten back on the right side of Tenth street, i. e. the north side, that when the truck came from the right side of Colonial drive into Tenth street, turning left to the south side, going at full speed, that the Pontiac was going about twenty-five miles per hour, and had reached a point when the truck was halfway across the center line of Tenth street when it struck, and that the front wheels of the Pontiac were “on the South side of the center line of Tenth street and the back wheels on the North,” when it struck. This is an impossible situation. If the Pontiac had passed the Johnson car and returned to the right or north side of Tenth street and the truck was halfway across the center line of Tenth street moving towards the south curb, there would have been no collision. The place at which the collision occurred and the position of the cars after the collision and the character of injury to both cars tend to corroborate the testimony of defendant’s witness, to the conclusion that the collision was due to the negligence of the driver of the Pontiac and not to Hays. There is some evidence tending to show that Hays might have seen the Pontiac before he entered the intersection and that in spite of this he plunged into Tenth street at full speed, estimated at twenty-five to thirty miles per hour, which evidence, under the decisions in this jurisdiction, would prevent a directed verdict for defendant; but the overwhelming weight of the evidence and the physical circumstances convince us that the verdict is wrong and unjust and should have been set aside at defendant’s motion. It becomes then the duty of the appellate court to do what the trial court should have done. Birmingham Ry., L. & P. Co. v. Owens, 135 Ala. 154, 33 So. 8; Southern Ry. Co. v. Herron, 189 Ala. 662, 66 So. 627; Southern Ry. Co. v. Lollar, 135 Ala. 375, 33 So. 32; Cudd v. Bentley, 204 Ala. 586, 87 So. 85; Eminent Household of Columbian Woodmen v. Payne, 18 Ala. App. 23, 88 So. 454; Edmonds v. Schreiber, 22 Ala. App. 24, 111 So. 755.
 There is another point presented by the record which perhaps should be passed upon on this rehearing. When Powell, the owner of the Pontiac car, was being examined by defendant, he was permitted, over objection and exception, to testify that, some forty-five minutes after the collision, he went to the scene and put his foot on the brake of the truck and, “It went down to the floor” ; that, “When I put my foot on the brake, it felt like it would hold just a little bit.” With this as a basis, this witness proceeded to testify that in his opinion the brakes were not in good condition, and that a truck running thirty miles an hour, with brakes in the condition he found them, would require a distance of one hundred feet to be stopped.
There was no further examination of the brake made by this witness to see what effect the collision had had on the brake or the rods connecting it. In other words, it is not shown that the car or the brakes were in the same condition as they were at the time of the collision, non constat the collision loosened or broke the brake connection along with the other damage done the truck. It is only when the article described is shown to be in the same condition at the time of examination as at the time of collision that testimony of its condition afterwards is admissible. Aplin v. State, 19 Ala. App. 604, 99 So. 734. Evidence of an experiment, where*185by to test the truth of testimony that a certain thing occurred, is not admissible, where the condition attending the alleged occurrence and experiment are not shown to be similar. Hisler v. State, 52 Fla. 30, 42 So. 692; Reid v. State, 68 Fla. 105, 66 So. 725. Foster, L, when a member of this court, writing to the same conclusion, observed that: “The burden is upon the party offering the evidence to show similarity in essential conditions.” Spelce v. State, 20 Ala. App. 412-419, 103 So. 694, 702.
While evidence of such experiments are frequently admitted to aid the jury in having the whole picture before them in considering their verdict, such evidence should always be received with caution, and only when it is clear that the jury will be enlightened thereby. Hisler v. State, 52 Fla. 30, 42 So. 692; Martin v. State, 68 Fla. 18, 66 So. 139.
The plaintiff’s witness Powell was permitted to testify, over timely objection and exception, in what distance the Hays truck could have been stopped while running twenty-five and thirty miles per hour on pavement. This was error. There was no' sufficient predicate for this testimony. Powell was not shown to have been familiar with the Hays truck, nor was it shown that he ever examined the brakes on the truck before the collision and had never done more than to press down the brake pedal, after the truck had been partially demolished in the wreck.
The opinion is amplified and extended, and the application is overruled.