Court Opinion

ID: 9609873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:32:43.794523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:52.942599
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
specially concurring in dissent.
I concur fully in the dissent but feel it proper to add:
John Barrow was a guest passenger in a car driven by Roy Barrow, his brother. Another car, driven by Jessie Hixson, collided with the Barrow car. John Barrow, the guest passenger, and his wife, jointly sued his host, Roy Barrow, and the driver of the other car, Jessie Hixson. The wife’s suit was for loss of her husband’s consortium.
Defendant Hixson filed a cross complaint against the driver of the Barrow car, to wit: Roy Barrow. The jury returned verdicts for plaintiffs, husband and wife, against both defendants. The jury likewise returned a verdict on the cross complaint in favor of defendant, Jessie Hixson, against the defendant, Roy Barrow.
Defendant, Jessie Hixson, attacked this verdict in the lower court, contending that it was repugnant, in that *528it found defendant Jessie Hixson was negligent and therefore liable to the guest passenger in Roy Barrow’s car, and to his wife for loss of the guest passenger’s consortium, and at the same time found Roy Barrow negligent and liable to Jessie Hixson.
In making this contention, Jessie Hixson seeks to extend the rulings and holdings in Jarrett v. Parker, 135 Ga. App. 195, which was decided by a divided court.
But the case of Jarrett is clearly distinguishable. There the plaintiff and defendant were each drivers of the two colliding automobiles, but here the plaintiff was a guest passenger. The negligence of the plaintiffs was not involved. The verdicts rendered on the main action and the cross complaint neither adjudicated that John Barrow, the guest passenger (or his wife) had anything whatever to do with the negligence that caused the collision. As to the guest passenger, obviously the jury decided that the drivers of both cars were negligent. And as to Jessie Hixson, the jury obviously decided that the driver of the other car was more negligent than was Hixson.
Thus, we repeat, the Jarrett case has no application whatever to the case sub judice.