Court Opinion

ID: 9653391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:45:52.61869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:58.520749
License: Public Domain

*328HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the view of the majority that Osborne’s testimony was admissible, nor with their view that it was not prejudicial and reversible error to charge on and read to the jury the Georgia Hit and Run Statute.
As to Osborne’s testimony, it seems clear to me that, though not true hearsay because “not an unsworn statement”1 but the sworn testimony of Osborne, his testimony was res inter alios acta, offered for the purpose of bolstering plaintiff’s testimony, and it, therefore, constitutes a self serving verbal act or occurrence transpiring out of the presence of the defendant and having no relevancy or materiality to the inquiry.2 This inquiry was at what speed Snyder was traveling, and it ought to be clear that a statement made to him that it would be dangerous to him or his car to travel at too fast a speed could have no probative value whatever in determining how fast he actually drove. The Georgia Statute, Article 2, c. 2, tit. 6, Georgia Civil Code of 1910 of Hearsay; Chapt. 38-3, Code of 1933, Hearsay, on which the majority rely, has no application here. That applies where conversations, etc., “are facts to explain conduct and ascertain motives.” The statute does not make such conversations, etc. admissible- to establish conduct or to prove that something was or was not done. It comes into play where conduct is established and the inquiry is not the what but the why of the conduct. The Georgia statute thus establishes no different rule from that prevailing generally. It certainly does not support the view of the majority that caution or advice to a drives not to go too fast can be admitted as having any probative effect to support his claim that he went at a moderate rate of speed. If this is the law, drivers would be well advised, before starting out on any automobile journey, to receive many cautionary admonitions and to make many professions of fine intention as to their speed, for, in the event of a collision, they will find them very present helps in time of trouble. It should not be necessary to cite authorities. The very statement of the proposition, I think, should be sufficient to establish its unsoundness. A case from Georgia precisely in point, however, is Bibb County v. Williams, 152 Ga. 489, 110 S.E. 275.
Notwithstanding this view, that the admission was error, I should not vote to reverse for it if the trial were otherwise errorless. For, while it was offered with the definite purpose of disputing the contention of defendant’s driver, that the Snyder car was coming around the curve at fifty miles per hour and of bolstering the plaintiffs’ contention that its speed was not over thirty-five miles, the statement offered was not unsworn but sworn to, and it was neither hearsay nor, in the sense of a hearsay declaration, self serving. In addition, there was competent and relevant evidence in support of plaintiffs’ theory, and I think it cannot be reasonabl}- said that the admission was prejudicial. But this was by no means the only error. There was the serious, the very prejudicial error of charging and reading to the jury the Hit and Run Statute. 3 It is true that *329the Georgia Courts of Appeal are not in agreement on whether, in an automobile collision, the violation of the statute can be considered upon the issue of negligence vel non, Springer v. Adams, 37 Ga.App. 344, 140 S.E. 390 holding that it cannot, Battle v. Kilcrease, 54 Ga.App. 808, 189 S.E. 573, holding that it can. But it is also true that the Battle case was examined by the Supreme Court in Georgia Power Co. v. Shipp, 195 Ga. 446, 24 S.E.2d 764, and that there the court said of the statute and of the Battle case:
“The statute is a penal one. * * * Its violation was made a crime, and as written the penalty is assessed only against the operator, without reference to the owner of the vehicle involved or the employer of the driver, as the case may be. ‘Unless otherwise provided, such a statute applies only to the operator of the motor vehicle, and does not create any liability on the part of the owner who is not the operator ; if, however, the, owner is present and the vehicle is being operated under his control, he is liable for non-compliance with the statute, unless the operator disobeys his instructions.’ 42 C.J. 385, § 1450. The provisions of a statute similar to that under consideration were invoked in a civil action for the death of a boy struck by a truck, in the case of Nager v. Reid, 240 Mass. 211, 133 N.E. 98, where it was held: ‘Section 24 of G.L. c. 90, making it a criminal offense for the driver of an automobile to go away without stopping and making known his name, residence and the number of his vehicle, after knowingly causing injury to a person, relates only to the operator and does not create any liability, criminal or civil, on the part of an owner who is not the operator.’ In our investigation we have examined Battle v. Kilcrease, 54 Ga.App. 808, 189 S.E. 573, and, without regard to the soundness of certain statements made in division two of the opinion in that case, we do not consider that the rulings there made are applicable to facts, such as here presented.”
In Hurst v. The State, 39 Ga.App. 522, 147 S.E. 782, 783, a criminal case brought for violation of the statute, the court said:
“It is proved that a defendant, knowing of an injury that he has inflicted, deliberately refuses to stop or assist his victim, this fact may be considered as evidence of a malignant heart, and as an aggravating circumstance which may be taken into consideration in determining the defendant’s guilt and fixing his punishment.”
It thus appears that under the settled law in Georgia, the statute is a penal one, and its violation is regarded as evidence of a malignant heart and the basis for punitive action on the part of the jury. Though plaintiffs had charged the defendants with violation of the statute, appellants were not on trial for its violation. Whether either of them was guilty of an offense under the statute was not an issue in the case, and if there had been evidence tending to show a violation of the statute, it would seem under these decisions that it would be error of a highly prejudicial kind to charge the statute in the case. It is not necessary, however, for us to so decide. If it could be charged in any negligence case, where there was evidence that the statute had been violated, it is quite plain that this is' no such case, for here no evidence of its violation was presented. When *330then the judge charged upon it, no matter what efforts he made to soften the charge, he put before the jury, without any evidence to justify its putting, the issue inevitably raised by the language of, and the feeling about, the statute, whether Hudson was a despicable hit and run driver.
No witness testified to a violation of the statute by the driver or to any fact from which a violation could be inferred. The driver and six other witnesses, including the night policeman in Milledgeville, testified positively that the driver did not hit and run as prohibited by the statute, but, on the contrary, he stopped, reported the accident, and went hack to the scene of it to do what he could to tender assistance, only to find, what the uncontradicted evidence shows, that the injured person did not remain at the place of the collision, hut was immediately driven away.4 It is the rule in. Georgia, as elsewhere, that “the affirmative and positive testimony of witnesses as to the actual facts or a particular occurrence cannot be overcome by testimony which is negative in character, or consists of mere opinions.” Hambright v. Western & Atlantic R. Co., 112 Ga. 36, 37 S.E. 99; English v. Georgia Power Co., 66 Ga.App. 363, 17 S.E.2d 891. If, therefore, the testimony of plaintiffs’ witnesses, negative in character as it was, had sought to put in issue the question of the statute’s violation, it could not have done so against the positive evidence to the contrary. But giving the evidence full effect, it did not purport to show that the defendant ran away and refused to give assistance. It went no further than a statement that he did not stop immediately. Such proof, without more, would not constitute a violation of the statute.
In these circumstances, to read the Hit and Run Statute to the jury and to charge *331on it was to tell the jury that it was legitimate for them to consider whether there was evidence that the driver had committed the contemptible crime of injuring somebody and then running off arid refusing assistance. It was no protection for defendants, after the court had dragged the crime statute in, to advise the jury that their finding that it had been violated would not authorize the jury to find the driver was negligent, for this was coupled with the statement that the fact that he had violated it could be considered as evidence that he was negligent, and far worse, the poison of the statute had already been injected. To charge the statute in a case of death by collision with a truck, where there was no evidence whatever to support the issue, was not only error but prejudicial error of the greatest kind. Verdicts gotten by such error induced by plaintiffs, ought not to be permitted to stand. If there was negligence and the plaintiffs are entitled to a verdict, such a verdict ought not to be wrested or influenced by prejudicial error. It ought to come in as the result of a fair and just trial, from which extraneous and prejudicial matters are rigorously excluded. I think the judgment ought to be reversed for this error. I dissent from its affirmance.

 Chamberlayne’s Modern Law of Evidence, Vol. 4, Chapt. 37, Unsworn Statements, Independent Relevancy, Sec. 2574, et seq.

 Chamberlayne’s Modern Law of Evidence, Vol 4, Chapt. 47, Relevancy of Similarity, Sec. 3208.

 “Here is another code section, gentlemen: ‘In case of accident to any person or damage to any property upon the public street or highway, due to the operation of a motor vehicle, tractor, oi trailer thereon, the operator of such machine *329shall immediately stop, and, upon request of the person injured or sustaining damage thereby, or of any other person present, give such person his name and address, and if he is not the owner of such vehicle, then in addition the name and address of the owner thereof, and further he shall render such assistance as may be reasonable or necessary.’
Now, I read you that code section because it is pleaded by the plaintiff — it is denied by the defendant — -and there has been some testimony introduced touching or in respect to this statute. I charge you, gentlemen, in connection with this “ statute here that I have just read, that a violation of this statute by the defendants in this case would not warrant a recovery by the plaintiff. Whatever testimony has been presented to this jury in respect to a failure to stop at the seene of the accident —and it is for the jury to say whether the defendant stopped or failed to stop — is to be considered by the jury in connection with all of the other testimony in the case in determining whether or not the other acts of negligence that are set forth in the plaintiff’s petition were done or not. As I say, a failure or a violation of this failure to stop section "would not warrant a recovery.”

 Hudson, the truck driver, testified that he stopped as quickly as he could do so with safety and went back down the highway looking for .the car. Burgamy, the only disinterested eye witness, swore that the truck stopped and he went back down the highway with the driver. Lonnie Brantley entirely disinterested, who was awakened by the crash and whose bedroom window was within 20 feet of the highway, watched the truck as it stopped and saw the driver and another man walk down the highway. O. O. Miller, an equally disinterested witness, whose store was on the curve and who also was aroused by the crash, saw the truck come to a stop. M. D. Haines, likewise disinterested and who lived across the highway from Miller, swore that the ti-uck stopped.
W. R. Smallwood, the driver of another truck going toward Milledgeville-after the accident, reached the scene of the accident very shortly after it happened and brought Hudson into Milledgeville where they located H. G. Posey, the night policeman.in Milledgeville. Posey testified that Hudson told him about the accident and he instructed Hudson,to call the sheriff of Baldwin County when he learned that the accident had happened outside the city limits, and Posey was present when the sheriff was called from his telephone. The sheriff of Baldwin County was dead at the time of the trial, but Osborne, the next friend of the plaintiffs, admitted on cross examination that on the day after the accident the sheriff told him (Osborne) the name of the truck company and the driver.
Five disinterested and unimpeaehed witnesses supported the story of the truck driver compleiely. It was undisputed that Snyder stopped only momentarily. Therefore, it was beyond Hudson’s power to have rendered any assistance in getting Snyder to the hospital.
After this positive affirmative unim-peached evidence the plaintiffs offered the following negative testimony:
Mrs. Wood, the sister of the decedent, testified, not that the driver had hit and run away but merely that she looked back after they had come to a stop and after she had found her brother’s arm was hurt and after Pryor-, who was in the ear with them, asked her to look back, but did not see the truck.
Pryor testified: “I did not have time to look and did not want to take time. I wanted to get him to the hospital. I walked around the front of the car . .
When I asked Mrs. Wood to look she certainly did. He did not stop, or she told me she did not see him.”
Mrs. Doris Johnson, who was awakened by the crash and in front of whose home Snyder brought his car to a stop, testified that she wont to her window, but did not raise it and put her head out, doesn’t know how far up the road she looked. -She testified further: “I suppose our house is 40 or 50 fee.t back from the paved portion of the highway, and Mr. Brantley’s house is within 10 or 15 feet. He is right on the road, his house is between lpe and my view up toward Miller’s store. You can see up to tlie dirt road but you eannot see in front of his store.”