Court Opinion

ID: 9589528
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:45:48.327767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:02.652020
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing.
Carlisle, J.
The rule that the trial court should not give in charge to the jury, upon the trial of a case, principles of law on issues not raised by the pleadings and the evidence, is, of course, a simple one, firmly established, and of long standing in this State. The application of the rule to a given state of facts is frequently, however, fraught with some difficulty and contrariety of opinion. As counsel for the plaintiff, by their motion for rehearing, raised some doubt in our minds as to the accuracy with which we-had applied this rule to the facts of this case in holding, in division 5 of the original opinion, that the evidence authorized the court’s charge to the jury on the principle of law *351that it is the duty of the plaintiff to exercise ordinary care and diligence to avoid the consequences of the defendant’s negligence, we granted the motion for rehearing with leave to counsel for the respective parties to submit briefs upon this point in order that we might thoroughly reconsider the ruling made in that division of the original opinion. The briefs of counsel are replete with citations on the subject, and we have carefully perused each of the cases cited, but none of them contains a factual situation so nearly identical to the present case as to be controlling. Each of the cases is controlled by its own particular facts. Miss Bray, by her conflicting testimony, submitted two theories as to the cause of the collision; namely, that as she approached the intersection of Brentwood and Date Avenues, an automobile coming from the opposite direction at a rapid rate of speed would have apparently reached a point on Brentwood at which automobiles were parked on both sides of the street at the same time that her automobile would, and that, when the other automobile was within approximately ninety feet of that point, she discovered that he was on the wrong side of the street, across the center line, and she swerved her automobile to the right to avoid a collision with the other automobile and collided with the pole; and, secondly, that, as she was proceeding along Brentwood at approximately twenty miles per hour and reached the intersection with Date Avenue, automobiles were parked on both sides of Brentwood and she suddenly observed an automobile coming from the opposite direction on its side of the street, and believing that her automobile and the other car would reach the point where the automobiles were parked on both sides of the street at the same time and that there was not sufficient space on Brentwood for four cars abreast, she swerved her car to the right and collided with the pole. The petition charges that Miss Bray failed to maintain a proper lookout, and that this was one of the proximate causes of the collision with the pole. The situation created under either of the two theories of the collision could have been the result of Miss Bray’s failure to keep a proper lookout; especially is such a finding inferable from the evidence as to the grade of Brentwood Avenue, the unobstructed view along the street for a considerable distance in the direction in which Miss Bray was driving, and from the fact that Miss *352Bray did not see the car coming from the opposite direction until it was within approximately 90 feet of her automobile. It is also inferable that the plaintiff could have, in the exercise of ordinary care, discovered Miss Bray’s inattention and warned her to keep a proper lookout, and this is true under the particular circumstances of this case, for the reason that she was seated beside Miss Bray on the front seat of the car, and she at no point in her testimony said that she was not looking or did not look at Miss Bray. This was sufficient, though concededly weak, evidence to authorize the court’s charge on the duty of the plaintiff to exercise ordinary care to avoid the consequences of Miss Bray’s negligence. The evidence in this case is at least as strong as that in Crandall v. Sammons, 62 Ga. App. 1 (7 S. E. 2d 575), in which this court refused a new trial on account of the court’s charging this principle of law when the evidence showed that the plaintiff was seated on the rear seat of an automobile and the driver’s inattentiveness to traffic was the cause of the collision. The court in that case said: “There was apparently no reason why the plaintiff, sitting in the rear of the car, might not have observed the actions of the defendant and have become aware of his inattentiveness to traffic.” Accordingly, the judgment originally rendered in this case is adhered to on rehearing.

Judgment adhered to.

Gardner, P. J., and Townsend, J., concur.