Court Opinion

ID: 9767722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:24:23.74932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.617342
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
We have had presented to us, in this cause, a petition entitled “Petition to Court of Appeals to Reconsider Its Judgment on Its Own Motion”, filed in this Court Oct. 17,1957. This petition will be treated by us as a petition to rehear.
Under the provisions of Rule 22 of the rules of this Court, all petitions for rehearing must be filed within 10 days after the opinion of the Court is filed; and, since the opinion of this Court, rehearing of which is sought, was filed July 25, 1957, it is obvious that the petition is filed too late and must be denied. There is another reason why said petition should be denied, on its face, without examination of the merits of same, which is that the petitioners have heretofore filed with the Supreme Court a petition for certiorari in this cause. We think that petitioners could not, in any event, be entitled to pursue concurrently their effort to have the Supreme Court reverse the action of this Court and an effort to have this Court, either on its own motion or otherwise, reconsider the action which it has taken in this cause.
In spite of our refusal to consider this petition for rehearing on its merits, however, we think it states no ground which should, in any event, cause this Court to reconsider the action which it has heretofore taken in this cause. The ground for reconsideration set out in *312the petition is that on the same day this Court’s opinion was filed in this canse, to wit, July 25, 1957, this Court, in the case of Holloway v. Kinsey, - S. W. (2d) -, filed an opinion which is contradictory. The alleged contradiction is said to consist of a ruling in the Zanola case that the plaintiffs were as a matter of law guilty of contributory negligence while driving down a center lane of traffic on East Parkway in Memphis, Tennessee; whereas, in the Holloway case, the opinion of this Court said, “Certainly we can not say that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law in traveling down the center lane of the west half of Main Street.” In the first place, the factual situations in the Zanola case and the Holloway case were entirely different. In the Holloway case, the evidence had been submitted to a jury, and the jury had returned a verdict in favor of the plantiffs; whereas, in the Zanola case, the trial judge, with whose opinion this Court agreed, had thought there was not enough evidence to justify submitting the issues to a jury. Furthermore, even if this Court were wrong in ruling in its opinion in this case filed July 25, 1957, that plaintiffs Mary Cowan Zanola and Angelo Zanola, were as a matter of law, guilty of contributory negligence, it would not change the result of the case even if we did reconsider that particular ruling. As was stated in our opinion in the case filed July 25, 1957, “We think it could be fairly inferred that the defendants’ automobile had been driven to the place where it was struck by the plaintiff’s automobile, but not that it had been negligently driven there, as is alleged in plaintiffs’ declarations. Furthermore, even if it could be inferred by the proven fact of its being there, that it had been negligently driven there by de*313fendant Davis, that still would not eliminate the obvious fact that it could not have been driven there at all without plaintiffs having seen it approaching, if they had kept a proper lookout ahead and to their left. For the -double reason, therefore, that no act of negligence alleged in plaintiffs’ declarations is proved against defendants, or either of them, and, also, because Mr. Za-nola, as a matter of law, must be held guilty of contributory negligence, it follows necessarily that the trial judge’s ruling which granted the defendants ’ motion for a directed verdict, must be affirmed”. Even if we were to reconsider and rule that the plaintiffs in the Zanola case were not guilty of contributory negligence, the judgment against them, based on the trial judge’s peremptory instruction to the jury, would nevertheless, in our opinion, have to be affirmed because of the absence of proof of any of the acts of negligence alleged against the defendants. It follows, therefore, that even if we were to consider this petition to rehear on its merits, we would feel constrained to deny same.
The petition for rehearing is, accordingly, denied.
Avery, P. J. (W. S.), and Carney, J., concur.