Court Opinion

ID: 9617620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:58:57.598428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:13.489767
License: Public Domain

Hall, Judge,
dissenting to Division 5. For the past one hundred and ninety years, a plaintiff has been the master of his lawsuit in the State of Georgia. During this period of time the plaintiff rather than the tortfeasor determined what theory or theories the plaintiff was entitled to pursue in seeking to recover damages for tort. But alas, under the majority opinion all this has been changed. A new day has dawned for tortfeasors in Georgia. This court has now elevated the status of a tortfeasor to the degree that he has standing to decide upon what theory of tort he prefers to be tried.
The majority opinion concedes that on this specific point outside authorities are in conflict. In fact there are only a handful *875of states that have considered the question. Nevertheless the majority opinion creates an illusion of a so-called “weight of authority” by engaging in verbose and prolix quotations, i.e., quoting page after page from these few cases—even quoting the dissents of opposing authorities. The answer to this case must be found from the exercise of our own independent judgment in accordance with the clear public policy of this State and the law already established.
The majority opinion recognizes that the doctrine of respondeat superior, making the master liable for the tort of his servant in the scope of his employment, is the law of Georgia, and that the entrustment of a vehicle to a person known to have reckless driving propensities is an independent tort of the entrustor or employer.
Thus the law creates two distinct duties of the defendant to the public—one his duty as an employer to answer for the wrong done by his employees in pursuing his business—the other the duty of every person, including employers, not to entrust a vehicle to a reckless person making it likely that someone will be injured. Savannah Electric Co. v. Wheeler, 128 Ga. 550 (58 SE 38, 10 LRA (NS) 1176); Estridge v. Hanna, 54 Ga. App. 817 (189 SE 364); NuGrape Bottling Co. v. Knott, 47 Ga. App. 539 (171 SE 151); Christian v. Columbus & Rome R. Co., 79 Ga. 460 (7 SE 216); Medlock v. Barfield, 90 Ga. App. 759 (84 SE2d 113); Gay v. Healan, 88 Ga. App. 533, 537 (77 SE2d 47). With respect to the first duty, the employer’s tort liability is indirect, or vicarious; with respect to the second duty his tort liability is direct. With respect to the first, the employer is jointly liable with the wrongdoing employee; with respect to the second, whether he is liable severally or jointly depends upon whether his independent negligence concurs with the employee’s negligent driving. With respect to the second, a corporation or individual might in the short run reduce its expenses since incompetent drivers could be procured for less money than competent drivers. Nevertheless, during the time the employer is knowingly entrusting a vehicle to a reckless driver, he is continually breaching the duty not to do so and is continually negligent. At the moment the driver’s reckless propensity operates *876to cause injury to someone, the employer’s negligent entrustment is present and is a cause of the injury. But for this breach of duty by the employer, the injury would not have occurred. 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts 1110, § 20.2. This negligence of the employer cannot but concur in time and causal relation to the injury with the negligent act of the driver contributing to cause the injury.
When, as in this case, the employer’s independent act is knowing entrustment of a vehicle to a reckless driver, the evidence showing the driver’s recklessness and the employer’s knowledge thereof cannot be legally prejudicial to the employer, because it constitutes proof relevant to the issue of negligent entrustment. That it might be inflammatory is, therefore, no reason to exclude it. Avery v. State, 209 Ga. 116, 126 (70 SE2d 716). And it cannot be legally prejudicial to either the driver or the employer on the issue of the driver’s negligence because the court would instruct the jury that this evidence is relevant to and should be considered only on the issue of negligent entrustment, as the court did in this case. We must presume that the jury pays attention to and correctly applies all of the charge. Stanley v. Squadrito, 107 Ga. App. 651, 658 (131 SE2d 227).
The law has created both duties of the employer to the plaintiff—respondeat superior (to answer for the acts of his employee) and the duty himself not to entrust a vehicle to a reckless driver—with the correlative rights of the public to enforce those duties by actions for damages. These are concomitant rights—and not alternative ones as the majority opinion makes them, and the law does not require the plaintiff to choose between the two. What standing does the employer defendant have in this case to demand that evidence that is relevant and not legally prejudicial cannot be admitted against him because he would rather be liable for his employee’s breach of duty to the public than to be liable for his own breach of duty? The principle is well stated in 8 AmJur2d 127, § 573: The employer’s liability does not “rest upon imputed negligence or upon ownership or agency; it rests upon the combined negligence of the owner and the driver—negligence of the owner in entrusting the vehicle to an incompetent driver, and negligence of the driver *877in its operation. However, where the circumstances warrant, one injured by the negligent operator of a motor vehicle driven by one other than the owner may seek recovery from the owner both upon the theory of respondeat superior and upon the theory that the owner knowingly entrusted the operation of his motor vehicle to an incompetent driver. The admission of agency in such a case does not banish the theory that the owner knowingly entrusted the operation of his motor vehicle to an incompetent driver.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The defendant entrustor attempts to equate the present case to a hypothetical situation where the suit has been predicated upon negligent entrustment alone and the employer admits all elements of proof except negligence of the employee and its causal relation to the injury. This will not wash. In that type of case the admission by the owner of entrustment to an incompetent driver would be an admission of its own negligence and thereby prove the truth of that issue. The jury would have before it this admission (evidence of the owner’s negligence) and then resolve the issue of the driver’s negligence in determining whether his known propensity for recklessness operated to make the employer’s negligence and the driver’s negligence combine and concur to cause the injury.
The defendant entrustor further contended in this case that the plaintiff’s deceased husband was negligent and by his own negligence caused or contributed to his death. Thus the defendant asserted and put before the jury the issue of camparison of the deceased’s alleged negligent conduct with the negligence for which the defendant was alleged to be responsible. This issue appears in the defendant’s pleadings, the defendant’s requests, to charge, and the court’s charge. Nevertheless, the majority opinion holds that the entrustor’s negligence cannot be compared, i.e., this tortfeasor is some sort of privileged character who is insulated from comparison. Must we prohibit the jury from considering the defendant’s alleged concurrent negligence in employing and retaining a reckless driver when they compare the deceased’s alleged negligence with that of the defendants in determining the cause or causes of the deceased’s death? Does public policy require that such a negligent de*878fendant be given the option of selecting for comparison with the plaintiff’s negligence the least distasteful act of negligence for which he is responsible, or that the court set up a protective screen to keep out legal evidence of the defendant’s breach of duty to the public not to entrust a vehicle to a reckless person?
The same reasoning applies to the question of aggravated damages under Code § 106-2002. At the time of the motion for summary judgment, the possibility existed that the question of aggravated damages could.be in the case. “In order for the jury to assess punitive damages in an action for a tort, it is not necessary that they shall be claimed eo nomine in the declaration.” Savannah F. & W. R. Co. v. Holland, 82 Ga. 257 (4) (10 SE 200, 14 ASR 158); Macon R. &c. Co. v. Mason, 123 Ga. 773 (2) (51 SE 569).
The majority opinion attempts to explain this away by citing cases that relate to Code § 105-2011 and deal with compensatory damages. They are inapplicable to Code § 105-2002. “In a negligence case recovery of aggravated damages may be authorized when the circumstances of the tort are such as to evince an entire want of care and indifference to consequences. Wilful and intentional misconduct is not essential.” 8 Encyclopedia of Georgia Law 72, Damages, § 49. This principle has been applied to the operation of a motor vehicle in Georgia. Jackson v. Co-op Cab Co., 102 Ga. App. 688 (3) (117 SE2d 627); City Ice Delivery Co. v. Turley, 44 Ga. App. 32 (1) (160 SE 517). It is applicable to an allegation of entrusting an automobile to an incompetent driver. Goff v. Lubbock Bldg. Products (Tex. Civ. App.), 267 SW2d 201; 62 ALR2d 813, § 8.
In summary, the defendant entrustor desires to insulate itself from the jury’s consideration of the question of its own negligence and merely offers to respond in damages (respondeat superior) for any negligence of its driver. It is asking the court for judicial immunity for its own act of negligence. Unfortunately a majority of this court has swallowed this theory hook, line and sinker. Such a holding subverts the public policy of this State that employers should exercise ordinary care in the hiring of drivers that they put upon the highways of this State.
In my opinion, the negligent corporate entrustor has employed *879the fiddler and danced to his time. It should now have to hear it played back to the jury regardless of how unpleasant the sound of the music.
The opinion further holds that the duplicity demurrer was good; the employee’s negligence for which the employer is liable under respondeat superior and the employer’s negligent entrustment should have been pleaded in separate counts. We are presented with no authority that would prohibit a plaintiff bringing a joint action against an employer and an employee for independent concurrent acts of ordinary negligence, despite the fact that the employer would be liable directly for his own act and also liable indirectly for the employee’s act. Decided cases, in fact, indicate a contrary rule. Savannah Electric Co. v. Wheeler, 128 Ga. 550 (53 SE 38) (first count of petition alleged as bases of liability negligence in employing a reckless conductor and negligence of conductor imputable to employer); Gooch v. Georgia Marble Co., 151 Ga. 462 (107 SE 47); Albany Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Shiver, 63 Ga. App. 755 (12 SE2d 114); Gay v. Healan, 88 Ga. App. 533, 539, supra; Akin v. Randolph Motors, Inc., 95 Ga. App. 841, 846 (99 SE2d 358). See also, Saliba v. Saliba, 201 Ga. 577, 582 (40 SE2d 511).
Felton, C. J., and Bell, P. J., concur in this dissent.