Court Opinion

ID: 9580890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:09:56.323399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:35.109645
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from the judgment and the portion of the opinion appearing in Division 2 (a). I have no quarrel with cases holding that the master can be held for injury caused by his servant when acting within the scope of his employment and for the purpose of accomplishing the authorized business of his master. That principle is well settled. But the record simply does not support the conclusion of the majority as to what the evidence shows, or their construction of it. A careful sifting of the evidence leads inevitably to the conclusion that a finding was demanded that Disharoon, the employee of American Oil Company, had stepped aside from his master’s business and was engaged on a purely personal matter in obtaining his gun from the truck, bringing it into the service station and attempting to remove it from his pocket for cleaning when it was dropped to the floor, causing it to fire and inflict the fatal injury.
Mr. Ralph Stewart, Disharoon’s supervisor, testified that he had never authorized or directed Disharoon to carry a gun for protecting American Oil’s property, and that he never knew of his having a gun in his possession in the 10 years that he had been his supervisor save on one occasion (according to Disharoon, about six months previously) in a motel room, at Dalton, after working hours, when they were in a room together and he saw a pistol in Disharoon’s suitcase. The record is devoid of evidence indicating that he had previously taken the gun on the job.
Disharoon testified that the gun was his own personal property which he had acquired and carried for about a year because there had been a number of instances when somebody shook the door to his motel room at various places. It was “not necessarily to protect property of the American Oil Company—just to protect anything that I had with me. It was for my protection.” He testified that American Oil Company had never instructed or authorized him to buy the gun to protect its property, and that he had never shown it to any employee of that
*482company while on the job. So far as he knew, only his supervisor, Mr.’ Stewart, had ever seen it and that was on the one occasion at Dalton. He did testify that “I would have protected their property if it had come to that,” though he had no instruction or authorization to use a gun in doing so. At best this statement was a mere conclusion. Granger v. National Convoy &c. Co., 62 Ga. App. 294 (7 SE2d 915); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Marshall, 65 Ga. App. 696, 705 (16 SE2d 33). It had no probative value. Patterson v. Cotton States Mut. Ins. Co., 221 Ga. 878, 881 (148 SE2d 320). Moreover, there is no evidence that there had ever been any indication of a need for a gun in connection with this job of packing and shipping the merchandise of a closed service station.
Relative to what Mr. Stewart knew of the matter Disharoon testified, “I carried my bag in the room, stayed in the same room, double room, and set the thing down and taken my stuff out of the bag and he seen it on the bed. Q. Did he ask you any questions about it? A. He said something about it; I don’t remember what it was. Q. Did you tell him why you carried the pistol? A. Yes, sir. In a way I did and in a way I didn’t. I didn’t say much about it. Q. He knew you carried the pistol as a result of your employment with the company? A. No, sir. [I] don’t think. Q. Did he tell you not to carry the pistol? A. No, sir. He didn’t.”
Stewart was asked about his knowledge concerning Disharoon’s carrying a gun. “Q. Now Mr. Stewart you knew that Mr. Disharoon carried a gun for some six or eight months prior to the time this little boy was killed? A. I knew that he had a gun at some time previous to this. As to the exact time, it was some few months previous to this. Q. You had discussed it with him and he told you that he carried it for his protection; isn’t that true? A. Yes. . . Q. Did it ever occur to you that he might be carrying a gun illegally while on the job of American Oil Company? A. The only place I saw it was off the job—not on the job.” Later Stewart testified, “I didn’t know he had the pistol on the job at the time.” Asked whether he had ever told Disharoon not to carry a gun he answered, “I have not, no.” It was not Stewart’s prerogative to instruct *483Disharoon not to carry the gun for his own personal protection while off the job.
On the occasion here involved he had gone to his truck parked outside a station that he was closing, removed the gun from a suitcase, put it in his hip pocket and returned to the inside of the station. As to why he had done so, Disharoon asserted that he had fired it on the Chattahoochee River near Columbus some two or three weeks before and “I had in mind to clean it. I had it in mind to clean the gun.”
It does not appear whether he did any cleaning of the gun, but as to how the incident occurred he testified: “I was taking it out of my pocket when I dropped it—my right hip pocket. I was going to take it back to the truck and put it up.”
There is not one line of evidence in this record that Disharoon acquired or kept the gun with the authorization or approval of American Oil Company; there is evidence to the contrary. There is not one line of evidence that anybody with American Oil Company ever knew that he carried the gun to its property or while on the job; there is evidence to the contrary. There is not one line of evidence that he ever took the gun on the job save this one occasion; there is evidence to the contrary.
On this specific occasion the only evidence as to why Disharoon brought the gun into the service station was his own testimony that “I had in mind to clean it. I had it in mind to clean the gun.” There is not a word of evidence that it was brought in for the benefit of or on behalf of American Oil to protect its property, or that it was done with its knowledge or consent; the whole evidence is to the contrary.
In a case where the facts as to the servant’s carrying a gun on the job and knowledge thereof by the master weighed strongly against him, we held:
“If the act of the engineer in the present case was, as we have held, his personal act, and was not one for which the master was responsible, it would be wholly immaterial, on the question of the master’s liability, whether the servant was of ungovernable temper, or habitually carried a pistol luhile on duty. If the master was liable because the act was performed by the servant *484within the scope of his employment, the employee's temper or unfitness, and the fact that he carried a pistol with the master’s knowledge, might be circumstances to be considered on the question of exemplary or punitive damage; but these facts of themselves cannot make the master liable for an act done by his servant outside the scope of his employment, and for which the master is not otherwise responsible. In other words, we do not think that the fitness, or the temperament or disposition, of the employee, and his private habits, are material facts to be considered, except on the question of aggravation, where the master is otherwise liable for the acts of the servant.” (Emphasis supplied.) L. & N. R. Co. v. Hudson, 10 Ga. App. 169, 174 (73 SE 30).
Under rulings made in Henderson v. Nolting First Mortgage Corp., 184 Ga. 724 (193 SE 347, 114 ALR 1022); Savannah Elec. Co. v. Hodges, 6 Ga. App. 470 (65 SE 322); Ford v. Mitchell, 50 Ga. App. 617 (179 SE 215); Plumer v. Southern Bell T. & T. Co., 58 Ga. App. 622 (199 SE 353); Pope v. Seaboard A. L. R. Co., 88 Ga. App. 557 (77 SE2d 55); Corum v. Edwards-Warren Tire Co., 110 Ga. App. 33 (1) (137 SE2d 738), and the many cases cited in them, only one conclusion is authorized—Disharoon was not serving his master in bringing the gun into the service station for cleaning or in his handling of it after bringing it inside.
Cases cited by the majority in support of their proposition do not authorize the result which they reach. In Prince v. Brickell, 87 Ga. App. 697, supra, one who was employed as a doorman at a night club and gaming house with instructions to admit only persons who had permission to enter, shot plaintiff’s husband when he attempted to enter without permission. There could be no question that this act was in the scope of and in furtherance of the master’s business.
Frazier v. Southern R. Co., 200 Ga. 590, supra, and American Security Co. v. Cook, 49 Ga. App. 723, supra, simply hold that the master may be held for a wilful tort (assault) of a servant committed while acting in the scope and furtherance of the master’s business. Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. McLeod, 9 Ga. App. 13, supra, held it to be error to exclude a printed company rule *485which the defendant contended, the employee had violated in the commission of the alleged wrong. This and other cases cited relative to violation'of company rules are wholly irrelevant. There was no claim of any rule or violation of a company rule here. And finally, Employers Liab. Assur. Corp. v. Henderson, 37 Ga. App. 238, supra, is a workmen’s compensation case in which a policeman sought and was awarded compensation for an injury received while cleaning a gun which the city required him to carry as a part of his duties. It was no part of Disharoon’s duty to carry a gun in the closing of a service station for his employer, nor was he even authorized to do so—certainly he was not so required. This case is wholly inapposite.
As to American Oil Company a verdict for the defendant was demanded. It was error to deny its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Felton and Judge Whitman join in this dissent.