Court Opinion

ID: 9849163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:35:36.830763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:04.435217
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring specially. I am in agreement with the headnotes and divisions 1 through 4 of the foregoing opinion, and concur dubitante with the fifth division.
Concerning the first headnote, we may observe that there are inevitably times when one may feel that adherence to this well-established rule does not result in. exact justice. But any other *830policy would open a Pandora’s box in every court in Georgia where there is a jury box, and would multiply the appeals. We must agree, with Prince Hamlet that it is better to suffer the slings and arrows of our present fortune than to fly to others that we know not of.
This reasoning, however, does not apply to the fifth division. The problem there is whether, under the facts of this case, the plaintiff has carried the burden of showing gross negligence on the part of the host driver.
If there was gross negligence on the part of the driver such must have occurred after the vehicle went into the ditch. Yearwood v. Yearwood, 45 Ga. App. 203 (164 SE 105). Certainly it will not be asserted that the driving of the vehicle into and around an intersection at a time when there was no other traffic present, when the road was dry, and at a speed of from six to eight miles per hour could amount to such, nor, under Yearwood, supra, was such present under similar circumstances when the car went into the ditch at 25 miles per hour. Nor do I think that the driving of the car into the ditch, caused by the presence of loose sand and gravel on the road could amount to gross negligence. See Saxe v. Terry, 140 Wash. 503 (250 P 27). Consequently, if there was gross negligence it must result from the acceleration of the vehicle after it went into the ditch when the driver “panicked” after he either stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes or when his foot slipped from the brake pedal onto the accelerator. All of the evidence was consistent with the defendant’s version. A similar factual pattern appears in Helms v. Leonard, 170 F. Supp. 143 (W. D. Va.), a jurisdiction where a guest must prove gross negligence on the part of his host driver just as in Georgia, and where the court held that there was no gross negligence shown when it appeared that the driver had intended to apply her brakes and made an effort to do so whereupon her foot either slipped off the brake pedal or she stepped on the accelerator and pushed it, then “panicked” and drove the automobile into a stone wall some 388 feet away.
As I see it, the ruling in division 5 of the opinion virtually abolishes the distinction between ordinary and gross negligence *831and, sub silentio, overrules Harris v. Reid, 30 Ga. App. 187 (117 SE 256), Tucker v. Andrews, 51 Ga. App. 841 (181 SE 673), and others following them. However, it must be admitted that there is authority for leaving the matter for determination by the jury—if there is evidence of negligence. We have many times held that questions of negligence and diligence, even of gross negligence and slight diligence, being questions of fact and not of law, are as a rule to be determined by the jury. Hennon v. Hardin, 78 Ga. App. 81, 83 (50 SE2d 236). And a case to the same effect where the factual pattern is very similar to the one sub judice is that of Siesseger v. Puth, 216 Iowa 916 (248 NW 352). Though I feel strongly that the evidence here tends rather to support a finding of accident than of negligence, and that it falls short of the standard announced in Harris v. Reid, supra, and Tucker v. Andrews, supra, yet I am reluctant to disturb a determination which the jury has made, and which has the approval of the trial judge as well as my brothers here.