Court Opinion

ID: 9589888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:49:53.112432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:04.620371
License: Public Domain

Justice Sharp
concurring in result:
I am in accord with the majority’s decision that plaintiff’s evidence entitled him to go to the jury on the issue of defendants’ negligence and that the trial judge erred in directing a verdict against him. Further, I do not disagree with the majority’s interpretation of Rule 15 (b). My thesis is that Rule 15 (b) is *61irrelevant to decision in this case. In my view, under Rule 8(a) (1) and Rule 84, Forms 3 and 4, plaintiff’s allegations are sufficient to permit the introduction of testimony that the golf cart had no brake to check its backward movement. Sutton v. Duke, 277 N.C. 94, 176 S.E. 2d 161.
In addition to the allegations (quoted verbatim at the beginning of the majority opinion) that defendants furnished plaintiff a golf cart which they knew, or should have known, had defective brakes, the complaint contains the following: Plaintiff and his partner “traveled up a hill and approached the crest of a hill and allowed the said golf cart to roll to a stop . . . and his partner began to get his golf clubs when the cart began rolling backward with the plaintiff applying the brakes, all to no effect. That the cart continued to gain speed rolling backward and ran over a rock in the fairway and sheered off a front wheel, causing the cart to overturn. ...”
Testimony, admitted without any objection, tended to show defendant Shumate told plaintiff that defendants’ golf carts had “no brakes on them going backwards.”
An allegation that the brakes were defective is surely broad enough to support evidence that they worked in one direction only. Brakes which do not stop both forward and backward motions are defective. Furthermore, plaintiff’s additional allegation that when the cart began rolling backward he applied the brakes to no effect is clearly sufficient to support the evidence of Shumate’s declaration. Thus, there is no variance between allegation and proof. In short, this is not a case in which it is necessary to resort to Rule 15(b) to insure the decision of a case on its merits. Patently, a complaint which is already sufficient has no need of amendment either by the express permission of the court or by operation of law.
It is also noted that defendants moved for a directed verdict “on the grounds that the evidence by its greater weight failed to prove any negligence and would leave this in the field of speculation and conjecture,” and that the court allowed the motion on the ground that the evidence of negligence was insufficient to support a verdict against defendants on that issue. The trial court’s ruling was not based upon a variance between allegation and proof.
Chief Justice Bobbitt joins in this concurring opinion.