Court Opinion

ID: 9586441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:11:07.584389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:15.187664
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge.
The verdict for the defendant was authorized by the evidence and the general grounds of the motion for new trial are without merit, but unless we can conclude that it was demanded a consideration of the special grounds becomes necessary. Since the evidence discloses that when the defendant was 150 feet away and traveling at a speed of only 12 miles per hour, he did observe that the Hirsch car was stopped ahead, we cannot say that the jury was bound to find that he could *448not, in the exercise of ordinary care, have brought his car to a stop before reaching and colliding with the rear of the Hirsch car. There is no evidence indicating what, if any, effort the defendant may have made to avoid colliding with the Hirsch car, save that his front wheels were turned to the right out of the ruts in the snow. There was a duty upon him to exercise ordinary care in avoiding a collision from the time he saw it parked in the street. The jury might have concluded from the fact that he was 150 feet away and traveling at only 12 miles per hour when he became aware of this situation and yet failed to avoid colliding with the car ahead the defendant was not in the exercise of ordinary care, and if they had done so we should have concluded, just as we do as to the verdict actually rendered, that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict. Consequently, we move to a consideration of the special grounds.
In ground 4 error is assigned upon the refusal of the court to give all of a requested charge. The request was in two paragraphs, one to the effect that the negligence of a husband is not, by virtue of the relationship of husband and wife, imputable to the wife. That was given as requested. The other paragraph requested was: “I further charge you that if the husband was negligent, as to which the court expresses no opinion, and if any such negligence was the joint concurring cause of the injury to the plaintiff, if any, the plaintiff would not be barred by virtue of any imputation of negligence of her husband; nor under such circumstances would this constitute any basis for reducing the damages, if any, which you might otherwise find the plaintiff wife was entitled, as to which latter I express no opinion.”
The jury might well have concluded that plaintiff’s husband here was negligent in the stopping of his car in the street, or that his manner of so doing was in some respect negligent. But we think, as we have indicated above, that they may also have concluded that the defendant was negligent in failing to bring his car to a stop before colliding with the Hirsch car, or in some other manner avoiding a collision with it. In that situation, unless they should conclude that the husband’s negligence was the sole proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury it must follow that his negligence may have been a joint concurring cause. *449Since this is a reasonable probability under the evidence before the jury here, we think that the request was proper and that the court erred in refusing to give it. The request, though in two paragraphs and stating two principles of law, is not defective for that reason under the facts here because both are correct and applicable statements of principles and the second paragraph and principle (not given) is dependent upon and related to the first. The two are not conflicting, and both are correct, pertinent and proper. Nor are they "commingled and confused in the same sentence” as in Childers v. Ackerman Const. Co., 211 Ga. 350, 352 (1) (86 SE2d 227).
In ground 5 error is assigned upon the refusal of the court to charge, upon proper request: “The doctrine of last clear chance is utilized in the State of Georgia. Thus, if you find that the plaintiff’s husband may have been guilty of negligence which contributed to the accident and the injury by putting his wife in a position of peril, as to which the court expresses no opinion, yet if thereafter the defendant, seeing the position in which the plaintiff was, had an opportunity by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence to save her from the consequences of her husband’s negligence, it was the defendant’s duty to do so, and if he failed to do so and that was the immediate proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff, she may still recover by reason of what is called the last clear chance doctrine.”
It is to be noted that the court did charge on three separate occasions that if the driver of plaintiff’s car (her husband) was negligent and his negligence was the sole proximate cause of her injuries, she could not recover. Additionally he charged that if the husband's failure to give warning of his intention to stop was the sole proximate cause of her injury or if the plaintiff failed to carry the burden of proving that her injuries were proximately caused by the defendant, she could not recover, and that the mere fact that an automobile skids on a slippery pavement does not in and of itself constitute negligence.
The defendant’s primary contention was that he skidded into it because he did not have time to stop or turn out and avoid the vehicle in which plaintiff was riding. The plaintiff’s primary contention was that he might in the exercise of ordinary care *450have done either of these things. Her view is well supported by the distance away that defendant saw plaintiff’s automobile, his slow speed, and the cleared entrance way to the service station which he passed prior to the point of impact.
In this view of the evidence, and especially after the reiteration by the court of circumstances under which the plaintiff could not recover, it would be a proper statement of the law and perhaps necessary to an unbiased exposition of it, to add at some point the principle of this requested charge.
In Georgia Automatic Gas Co. v. Fowler, 77 Ga. App. 675, 679 (49 SE2d 550), the court approved an instruction that “if . . . the driver of the car in which the plaintiff . . . was riding was negligent and by his negligence placed the plaintiff . . . in peril, and that such position of peril were known or in the exercise of ordinary care should have been known to defendant’s driver, and defendant’s driver then and there was negligent in any one or more of the particulars alleged in plaintiff’s petition, then plaintiff would be entitled to recover,” holding the instruction correct because “the charge on which error is assigned is an application of the last clear chance doctrine to the evidence in the case.” The allegations of negligence in this petition are following too closely, failing to yield the right of way, failing to keep a proper lookout ahead, driving into the automobile occupied by the plaintiff, and failing to stop the car before striking it.
It has often been said that there is no magic in nomenclature. The plaintiff was entitled to have the principle of law here requested given in charge, and the fact that she called it last clear chance does not destroy the effect of the principle; it is exactly what this court has done on many occasions. Perhaps it would be better and maybe less confusing to the jury if the technical legal phrase “last clear chance” were not used in the charge. In Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Coxwell, 93 Ga. App. 159 (91 SE2d 135), it was finally made clear that last clear chance does not apply against a non-negligent plaintiff. There is danger that by thinking in terms of semantics we will arrive at the conclusion that the rule of law which we have tagged last clear chance does not exist in any form, and thus confuse superseding cause with concurrent negligence. Specifically, prior to Coxwell the non-*451negligent plaintiff had to take a choice between the tortfeasor guilty of the original negligence which placed him in a position of peril and the subsequent negligence of another tortfeasor who injured him by failing to avoid that peril. If he chose to sue the original tortfeasor and it was shown that another failed to avoid, that failure was considered a superseding and therefore sole proximate cause insulating the first. We should not go equally far in the other direction—holding that the original tortfeasor is the sole proximate cause of the injury, and that the negligence of the second tortfeasor who failed to avoid need not be taken into account.
In ground 6 error is assigned upon a portion of the charge in which the court called the attention of the jury to the provisions of Code Ann. §§ 68-1647 (c) and 68-1648 (a), dealing with the requirement that any driver of a vehicle on the public highways or streets must, upon stopping or suddenly decreasing his speed, give appropriate signal either by means of the hand and arm or signal lamps or mechanical devices. There was testimony to the effect that plaintiff’s husband, although giving no arm signal, was driving a car equipped with signal lamps on the rear which he had reason to believe, but could not swear, were in working order. Under this evidence the charge was appropriate.
In ground 7 error is assigned upon a portion of the charge defining “accident” and outlining to the jury the theory of accident as being an occurrence without fault or negligence and which excludes responsibility for the cause of the injury. The charge on this subject was full and, as a statement of the law, was correct. Although the evidence indicating that the collision between the car in which plaintiff was riding and the defendant’s vehicle may have resulted from an accidental means or cause was sparse, yet we think that the testimony of the only eyewitness in position to make the observation that when he looked up and saw it the defendant’s car “had passed the point where our entrance driveway starts and was sliding into the curb. It was sliding along. He had already turned to the right and was sliding at a sort of an angle. He cut to avoid hitting the car in front, cut out of the ruts and his left front hit the right rear of the Hirsch Plymouth. The front wheels had gotten out of the *452rut, but the rear wheels were still in them. I couldn’t estimate his speed in the snow, but he was sliding. He had started turning right to try to avoid hitting the car,” was sufficient to authorize the charge.
In ground 8 error is assigned upon eight separate excerpts from the charge, some of considerable length and none of which are contended to be erroneous except that cumulatively they “inferred that there was evidence in the case by which the jury could have found that the acts of the plaintiff’s host driver were the sole proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury” and that “this was not adjusted to the evidence.” We do not find the several excerpts subject to the error assigned. Since it was shown that the host driver did stop his car in the street and in the ruts wherein all traffic traveling in that direction must move because, as plaintiff alleged in her petition, vehicles could not safely turn out of them, and since it is common knowledge that snow and ice on the street produce dangerous and slippery conditions for traffic, a jury question was raised as to whether the acts of the host driver, his manner of stopping at the time and place and under the existing conditions, may have been the sole proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. The charge was authorized.

Judgment reversed for the reasons stated in the second and third divisions.

Felton, C. J., and Bussell, J., concur. Eberhardt, J., concurs specially.