Court Opinion

ID: 9579155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:52:02.519695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:29.889101
License: Public Domain

On Plaintiff’s Motion for Rehearing
Hall, Judge.
The plaintiff questions our holding that the failure to obey a statute may be considered by the jury, along with all the other facts of the case, as a circumstance in determining whether or not a party was negligent, even though the statutory violation would not of itself alone constitute negligence. In this holding we followed Atlanta &c. Ry. Co. v. Gravitt, 93 Ga. 369 (20 SE 550). The plaintiff contends that *363Holmes v. Central R. & Bkg. Co., 37 Ga. 593, holds to the contrary and, being the older decision, should be followed.
The Gravitt case, in Division 4 of the opinion, held that a violation of the blow-post law was not negligence per se as to a person walking upon a railway track on a trestle not at a public crossing. At pages 391 and 392 the opinion (Division 4) stated that the Holmes case was the “first distinct announcement” on the question, had not been overruled, was made by a full bench (3 Justices), and was still in force. The Supreme Court followed the Holmes case in the Gravitt case in holding that the statutoiy violation was not negligence per se; and stated that proof of the statutory violation without any other evidence authorizing a finding of negligence, would not render the railroad liable (p. 409).
The Gravitt case held also, in Division 6 (p. 409), that the failure to obey the statute, when a part of the res gestae, is admissible in evidence and may be considered by the jury in passing upon the question whether the defendant was negligent relative to the person injured. The court cited several earlier cases so holding; some of these were full-bench decisions and some not.
It is true the language of the Holmes opinion is broad: “ . . . the accident having occurred elsewhere [than at a public crossing], the provisions of this act [blow-post law] are not applicable.” But it is obvious that the Gravitt opinion interprets the Holmes case as having decided only that the statutory violation was not negligence per se, and that it interprets the Holmes case as having not decided that the statutory violation was not relevant as evidence of negligence. The Gravitt decision was by a full bench' of five Justices. This court cannot rule against it either as to the meaning of the Holmes case or as to the relevance of a statutory violation in a transaction in which the injured party was not one within the intended protection of the statute.

Motion for rehearing denied.

Felton, C. J., and Bell,J., concur.