Court Opinion

ID: 9596302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:48:11.590267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:34.806902
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part. I concur with what is said in Division 1 of the opinion.
I dissent from Division 2, upon the basis and for the reason stated in the second division of Freeman v. Martin, 116 Ga. App. 237 (156 SE2d 511).
As to Division 3, a reading of the evidence in this case demonstrates it to be somewhat out of the category of what appeared in Sparks v. Porcher, 109 Ga. App. 334 (136 SE2d 153), wherein Chief Judge Felton, Judges Frankum, Jordan and I dissented, or in Freeman v. Martin, supra, or the several cases cited therein. Plaintiff testified that Mr. Darby, the deceased driver of the truck, had taken two drinks of vodka during the day, one at Augusta about 12:30 p.m., and another at Warrenton about 3 p.m., each being in a small paper cup “about the size of a quarter.” These did not seem to have been sufficient to affect him or his driving, and plaintiff saw nothing wrong with his driving. He “did not get over the speed limit.” The accident occurred about 4:30 p.m., and at the time the deceased “was driving all right.” They were engaged in a normal conversation and proceeding along the road in a normal manner, in the proper lane of traffic, neither meeting nor passing anyone when the deceased suddenly slumped over the steering wheel, and the truck went into the ditch and struck a culvert. Although he had no prior history of heart trouble it was medically determined that Darby died suddenly of a coronary occlusion.
Although the accident occurred some three-tenths of a mile west of the city limits of Madison, and there was some evidence that several businesses of one kind or another were located in that area, it does not appear that the speed of the truck or the deceased’s manner of driving could be accounted as the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury. As we have already pointed out, there was no other traffic in the area at the time. The deceased was driving at the same general rate of speed that had been observed in coming from Augusta. There was *192no reason to anticipate or foresee that he would experience a heart attack as a result of which the truck would go into the ditch. “The wrong-doer may be charged with those consequences and those only within the range of prudent foresight.” Seymour v. City of Elberton, 67 Ga. App. 426, 432 (20 SE2d 767), citing Bird v. St. Paul Fire Ins. Co., 224 N. Y. 47 (120 NE 86, 13 ALR 875). “Even if an injury has resulted in consequence of a certain wrongful act or omission, but only through or by means of some intervening cause, from which last cause the injury followed as a direct and immediate consequence, the law will refer the damage to the last or proximate cause, and refuse to trace it to that which was more remote.” Peggy Ann of Ga. v. Scoggins, 86 Ga. App. 109,116 (71 SE2d 89), citing Fowlkes v. Southern R. Co., 96 Va. 742, 745 (32 SE 464).
The evidence here leads inevitably to the conclusion that the sudden heart attack of the deceased was an intervening cause, but for which plaintiff would not have suffered his injury, even though the deceased may have been driving the truck at a speed of from 60 to 65 miles per hour in a “business area” outside of town where there were in the general area some seven driveways leading off the road.
In his testimony plaintiff recognized what the real cause of the accident had been when he was asked: “Would you say that the cause of the accident was the heart attack of Mr. Darby, if he had a heart attack? A. Yes, sir.” I agree with him. A verdict for the plaintiff could not be justified.
I am authorized to say that Chief Judge Felton concurs in this view of the matter.