Court Opinion

ID: 9845694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:26:26.976988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:18.684255
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
It is conceivable that a person in close proximity to a collision might not be an eyewitness to the moment but might hear the sound of impact and, looking, see a damaged car drive away, leaving another *61damaged car behind. That person may have seen the victim’s car shortly before the collision, with no damage. Although this person’s testimony would obviate the fraud secured against by the requirements of OCGA § 33-7-11 (b) (2), it would not supply the narrow type of corroborative evidence specified. Eyewitness means “one that sees or has seen an occurrence or an object with his own eyes and so is able to give a firsthand report on it.” Webster’s 3d New Inti. Dictionary (unabridged). “Eyewitness” cannot be judicially expanded to include “earwitness” or other sensory perception witness.
Decided September 6, 1990
Rehearing denied September 24, 1990
L. Thomas Cain, Jr., for appellant.
McClain & Merritt, William S. Sutton, Drew, Eckl & Farnham, Nena K. Puckett, Theodore Freeman, McKenzie & McPhail, Donna O. Willis, Fain, Major & Wiley, Thomas E. Brennan, Greene, Buckley, DeRieux & Jones, Francis C. Schenck, for appellees.
Even if such an elasticized meaning were given to the word by judicial interpretation based on the underlying purpose of the statutory provision, it would not aid plaintiff in this case. The sound he heard was not of the decedent’s vehicle colliding with the phantom vehicle but rather with the loading dock. The sound did not connect the allegedly negligently-driven car with the wreck from which it emanated.