Court Opinion

ID: 9582286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:24:48.27053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:37.286896
License: Public Domain

On Motion to Rehear.
Quillian, J.
The majority opinion in this case holds that it was reversible error for the trial court to exclude the testimony of the witness J. D. Noble as to what the fireman of the train crew told him with reference to the position on the railroad of the deceased, just prior to the train hitting him, for two reasons: First: It was a part of the res gestae. Secondly: It was a declaration made dum fervet opus and admissible to explain the conduct of the train crew, including that of the engineer.
While it is true that the witness 'Noble was not at the exact spot on the railroad track when the tragedy occurred, he was however, in close proximity thereto, and as contradistinguished from the cases of Weinkle & Sons v. Brunswick & Western R. Co., 107 Ga. 367 (33 S. E. 471) and Henderson v. State, 210 Ga. 680, 683 (82 S. E. 2d 638), cited by counsel for the plaintiff in error as authority for excluding the testimony as not part of the res gestae, he arrived on the scene within three to five minutes *701after the deceased was struck by the train and while the conductor and fireman were in the process of making an investigation to determine what exactly had happened. Such time had not elapsed when Noble arrived on the scene for the fireman to have fully realized the consequences resulting to the company for the killing of the deceased, nor as to render the occurrence which was the subject of the conversation a completed and remote transaction of the past. The statement made by the fireman was not such declaration accompanying the act of killing the deceased as to render it a simultaneous exclamation; it was nevertheless sufficiently close in point of time as to make it a part of the res gestae, and as such admissible in evidence in this case.
The statement of the fireman: “I saw the man sitting on the track in the slumped over position and the man heard the train and turned and looked and it was too late; he made an effort to move, he heard the train coming and started to get up— looked.” While this statement is clearly hearsay it was nevertheless admissible to show location of the deceased upon the track prior to the fatal injury of the deceased. This evidence was also sufficient, as was held when this case was here before, to authorize the inference that the deceased had suffered some kind of physical or mental collapse in assuming such posture on the track as described by the fireman. This evidence also "served to explain the conduct of the engineer and fireman who were in charge of the engine on the occasion under investigation, being illustrative of the issues as to whether the speed of the train, the failure to ring the bell, to have the train under proper control and to exercise ordinary care to anticipate the presence of the deceased at the locus of the collision was the proximate cause of his death.”
Perhaps it is well to observe that the very elements of proof that bring the testimony of Noble within the res gestae rule are absent in the case of Weinkle & Sons v. Brunswick Western R. Co., 107 Ga. 367, supra. In the case at bar the conversation occurred within three to five minutes after the deceased was killed and while; an investigation was being conducted by the witness, a policeman. In the Weinkle & Sons case (pp. 370, 371), it is said: “Unless the declarations of the engineer were made while he was engaged in the transaction of some business *702of the company with the person with whom he was talking within the scope of his authority, or were declarations accompanying an act done by him in discharge of some duty imposed upon him in his relation as a servant of the company, the evidence was inadmissible and should have been rejected. It is not pretended that the statements made by the engineer were made in the course of any transaction with the witness in relation to the company’s business, and therefore such statements do not come within the reason of that rule which permits the declarations of an agent to be introduced against his principal when they are made dum fervet opus. Were the statements of the engineer a part of the res gestae of the occurrence so as to make them admissible for that reason? It does not distinctly appear in the record what was the lapse of time between the killing of the mules and the conversation between the engineer and the witness; but from what does appear it must have been such a lapse of time as that the declarations were not, in any sense, contemporaneous with the act of killing the mules. The witness was not present at the time that the collision occurred, and it is to be inferred from what is stated in the motion for a new trial that when the witness arrived upon the scene such time had elapsed that the engineer was in a position to- fully realize the consequences resulting to the company from the killing of the mules, and that therefore the occurrence which was the subject of the conversation was in the past.”
In Kemp v. Central of Ga. Ry. Co., 122 Ga. 559 (50 S. E. 465) the record does not disclose that the self-serving statement of the engineer, which a witness undertook to repeat, was made near the time of the occurrence to which the engineer’s statement referred, that it was made during an investigation or under any circumstances that would bring it within any exception to the hearsay rale. The case is not authority for anything contrary to the rule laid down in the original opinion.
Moreover, the ruling made' on the previous appearance of this case that there was sufficient competent evidence in the record to take the case to the jury was an adjudication that the statement made by the defendant’s fireman, testified to by J. D. Noble, was of probative value. Had the testimony as to his statement been hearsay and not admissible under any exception to the *703hearsay rule it would have had no probative value, even when admitted without objection. The ruling then made reversing the trial court’s grant of a nonsuit is conclusive that the statement made by the fireman and sworn to by Noble was not mere hearsay evidence. The former ruling is the law of this case.

Judgment adhered to on rehearing.

Nichols, J., concurs. Felton, C. J., concurs specially.