Court Opinion

ID: 9573160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:48:54.89352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:38.549227
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. “ ‘A corporation can only make admissions through its agents, and the admissions of such agents acting within the scope of their powers and about the business of their agency, are admissible.’ Imboden v. Etowah & Battle Branch Mining Co., 70 Ga. 86 (11). See Code §§ 38-406[, now OCGA § 24-3-33], 4-315[, now OCGA § 10-6-64].” Timeplan Loan &c. Corp. v. Moorehead, 221 Ga. 648, 649 (1), 650 (146 SE2d 748). Accord Coffee Butler Svc. v. Sacha, 208 Ga. App. 4 (430 SE2d 149). In light of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s application of these two Code sections, it is my view that Anna Stewart, Casualty Claims Manager for Insurance Adjustment Services, Inc., may testify “Anne Peppers, the City Administrator of Social Circle, told us that they had accepted responsibility for the accident and they had turned it over to the Georgia Municipal Association.” This evidence is admissible to estop the defendant municipal corporation from denying it accepted responsibility for any liability to plaintiff Kathy E. Williams for her painful injuries. The res gestae requirement is fulfilled by the circumstance that Anne Peppers (allegedly) made this statement in her capacity as the City’s spokesperson to the City’s agent for investigating the accident, while addressing the substance of that investigation. It is not the proximity to plaintiff’s fall that determines whether Anne Peppers’ (alleged) admission against the City’s interest is within the res gestae but its proximity to the investigation of the resulting tort claim which Anne Peppers ordered undertaken on behalf of the City. The relevancy of such testimony “rests on the theory that what he[, the agent,] does and says dum fervet opus, — that is, with reference to the act in controversy and while engaged in its performance, — is a part of the res *750gestae of the transaction and constitutes part of and throws light upon what the principal himself actually does.” Baker v. Lowe Elec. Co., 47 Ga. App. 259 (hn. 2) (170 SE 337). Since, in the case sub judice, the defendant municipality has not established the nonexistence of every material fact question, I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of summary judgment.
Decided March 7,1997
Reconsideration denied March 27,1997.
David R. Hughes, E. Graydon Shuford, for appellant.
Carothers & Mitchell, Richard A. Carothers, Thomas M. Mitchell, for appellee.