Court Opinion

ID: 9851081
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:07:11.480897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:48.374867
License: Public Domain

Whitman, Judge,
dissenting. To find liability in this case the jury would have to find that the defendant owed a duty under the circumstances not to leave the decedent unrestrained, even momentarily, and that this duty was breached and was re*560sponsible for a fall. Further, they would have to find that the fall caused or contributed to the decedent’s death. In our view the evidence would authorize all of these findings except the latter. The medical expert stated with definiteness that death resulted from cerebral hemorrhage or “stroke.” But beyond this, his testimony was equivocal. He testified in effect that it could not be determined whether the stroke which brought death was caused from matura! causes or was caused or contributed to by a fall.
“1. Facts which are consistent with either of two opposing theories prove neither. . . 2. Where it cannot reasonably be determined from the plaintiff’s evidence whether or not the defendant’s negligence caused the injury complained of, a nonsuit is proper. . . When the party upon whom the burden of an issue rests seeks to carry it, not by direct proof, but by inferences, he has not, in this reasonable sense, submitted any evidence for a jury’s decision, until the circumstances he places in proof tend in some proximate degree to establish the conclusion he claims; and for this, the facts shown must not only reasonably support that conclusion but also render less probable all inconsistent conclusions.’ ” Camp v. Emory University, 95 Ga. App. 442 (1, 2) (98 SE2d 66). (Citations omitted). Generally, see 32A CJS 639, Evidence, § 1019 (b).
I would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Judge Quillian concurs in this dissent.