Court Opinion

ID: 9604321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:19:50.086197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:21.143555
License: Public Domain

Rodman, J.,
dissenting: I dissent from the opinion of the majority, not because of any disagreement as to legal principles, but because I think the language of the complaint describing the factual situation and defendant’s conduct is sufficiently broad, even though lacking in details, to authorize recovery when interpreted in the light of plaintiff’s testimony describing the situation under which the collision occurred. He testified: “We were coming down the road and just before we got to Marvin Lee’s avenue, which was on our right side that we were on, I looked up and I saw a car coming around the bend up there by the tobacco barns on the Tucker farm and when he come around the curve he was on our side of the road. He was between 250 and 300 yards, probably 400, from us at that time. He stayed' on our side of the road a right good while. I would say the car coming towards us got within 35 or 40 yards when he turned into his side of the road.” Again he testified: “When we were about 35 to 45 yards apart, Richardson swerved across the road a little bit. He looked like he might have looked up and saw us. He won’t directly on our side, but he was straddling the center line when he went across to his proper side. He got on his side fully 45 yards from us; he was on his side then. ... I don’t say that Lee cut to his left when he was about 35 or 45 yards from Richardson to keep from having a wreck. I told you before that there was room on that dirt on Lee’s side that he could have got off on his side. There’s six feet of flat land there . . .”
The Court treats the allegation of the complaint that Dock Richardson suddenly appeared on the wrong side of the road as having only one meaning: that he suddenly appeared in such close proximity as to create an emergency for which defendant was not responsible. I concede that it might have that meaning, but I think that it may as well describe the condition depicted by plaintiff, viz., that the vehicles were 250 to 400 yards apart when Dock Richardson turned the corner or curve on the wrong side of the road. Such a situation bears no resemblance to the factual situation described in Henderson v. Henderson, *73239 N.C. 487, nor in Ingram v. Smoky Mountain Stages, Inc., 225 N.C. 444, relied upon by the majority to sustain their position. Defendant did not object to plaintiff’s testimony describing the situation. The facts related do not, as a matter of law, in my opinion, portray a sudden emergency created without fault of defendant. Plaintiff could not, of course, allege one cause of action and recover on a different factual situation. The probata must correspond to the allegata. Hence, it seems to me, that the interpretation placed on the pleadings at the trial by plaintiff, by defendant, and by the court that the facts alleged accorded with the testimony ought now to be accepted by this Court as a correct interpretation of what the plaintiff intended to say when he filed his complaint. If it was lacking in detail, defendant’s remedy was by motion to make it more specific and certain.
I think the pleadings suffice to permit the plaintiff to offer evidence. I think there is evidence on which the jury could find in favor of the plaintiff. Hoke v. Greyhound Corporation, 227 N.C. 412. No exception was taken to the charge of the court. It is my opinion defendant has not demonstrated error.
Bobbitt, J., concurs in dissent.