Bowers v. City of Chattanooga

855 S.W.2d 583, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 1049
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 22, 1992
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 855 S.W.2d 583 (Bowers v. City of Chattanooga) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bowers v. City of Chattanooga, 855 S.W.2d 583, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 1049 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

TOMLIN, Presiding Judge,

Western Section.

This opinion represents “Chapter II” in this personal injury action. The minor plaintiff, Danny Leon Bowers, his mother, Carmen Hudgins, and his father, Danny Bowers, Sr., brought suit against the City of Chattanooga (“City” or “defendant”) under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act (“GTLA”) to recover for injuries sustained when the minor plaintiff was struck by an automobile shortly after alighting from defendant’s school bus.1 Following a bench trial, the Hamilton County Circuit Court returned a judgment for the minor plaintiff, his mother and father in the sums of $100,000, $5,000 and $30,000, respectively. On appeal, this Court dismissed the suit, holding that the GTLA provided City with immunity from liability for any alleged negligent acts. All other issues raised by plaintiffs were pre-termitted.

Thereafter, the Supreme Court granted plaintiffs’ application for permission to appeal to determine whether T.C.A. § 29-20-205(1) protected City from a suit alleging negligence by a public school bus driver. Following a hearing on appeal, the Supreme Court found that there were two governmental acts that were proximate causes of the accident, one of which arose out of a “discretionary function” and one of which did not arise from a “discretionary function” under T.C.A. § 29-20-205(1). For a more thorough discussion of this issue see Bowers by Bowers v. City of Chattanooga, 826 S.W.2d 427 (Tenn.1992).

The judgment of this Court was reversed and the cause was remanded to us to con[585]*585sider and dispose of the issues pretermitted in our earlier opinion. City contends the trial court erred in holding that: (1) the minor plaintiff's mother was not guilty of contributory negligence; (2) a non-custodial parent, Danny Bowers, Sr., was entitled to recover as damages an amount in excess of his actual out-of-pocket expenses pertaining to his son’s injuries, notwithstanding the provisions of T.C.A. § 20-1-105; (3) plaintiffs Hudgins and Bowers, Sr. were entitled to recover damages for future medical expenses; and (4) the amount of damages that minor plaintiff was entitled to recover was not limited by the GTLA to $40,000. For the reasons stated herein, we are of the opinion that the trial court erred in awarding damages for future medical expenses to the minor plaintiff’s mother and father. Otherwise, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

As this case was tried below without the intervention of a jury, our scope of review on appeal is de novo upon the record in the trial court. The findings of the trial court come to us with a presumption of correctness, and, absent an error of law, unless we find that the evidence preponderates against these findings, we must affirm. Rule 13(d) T.R.A.P.

Danny Bowers was six years old and in the first grade of the Chattanooga School system when the accident occurred. He was struck by an automobile as he started to cross Dodds Avenue shortly after alighting from a school bus owned and operated by City. Danny’s mother and father were not married at the time of Danny’s birth and had remained unmarried up to and at the time of the accident. Since his birth Danny has lived continuously with his mother. At the time of the accident Danny and his mother were living with his grandmother on the east side of Dodds Avenue, across the street from the Pro Re Bona Day Care Center.

Dodds Avenue is a busy four-lane street that runs north-south. Pro Re Bona Daycare Center is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Dodds Avenue and Eighteenth Street, which runs east-west. At this intersection Eighteenth is a “stop” street, and Dodds is the through street, without any traffic control. The entrance to Pro Re Bona is located on the south or Eighteenth Street side of the building.

A school bus stop had been established by the Chattanooga school system transportation division at Pro Re Bona for several years. The precise location of the stop was not designated. During the year of the accident, with but one exception, the after-school bus made two stops at this location. It stopped first on Dodds Avenue to permit the children who were going to cross Dodds to the east to leave the bus. It then pulled around the corner on Eighteenth Street and stopped at the entrance to the daycare center. Each time the bus would stop traffic with its warning devices until the students had crossed the street.

The record reflects that Danny rode the bus to school during both his kindergarten and first grade years at Ridgedale. On school days Danny would be accompanied by his mother or grandmother to and from the bus stop. They would walk him across Dodds in the morning to the Pro Re Bona corner, and meet him there in the afternoon to walk back across Dodds from Pro Re Bona to his home. The regular driver of the afternoon school bus testified that he observed that parents would wait for their children on the corner adjacent to the Pro Re Bona nursery on the west side of Dodds and would escort their children across Dodds after the bus arrived and stopped.

Because of overcrowded conditions and complaints by the regular driver of rowdiness on his bus, the transportation department took steps to reduce overcrowding and eliminate some of the disturbance on the bus. On the day of the accident, those students who normally exited the bus at the Pro Re Bona stop, including the minor plaintiff, were assigned to a different bus and driver. The route served by this bus was shortened, resulting in it arriving at Pro Re Bona some ten minutes earlier than under the regular schedule. Mother had no advance knowledge that this change had taken place.

[586]*586On that day, when the bus arrived at Pro Re Bona, it did not stop on Dodds Avenue, but instead turned the corner on Eighteenth Street and stopped there at the daycare center entrance. The minor plaintiff exited the bus at that time and walked eastward toward Dodds Avenue. Due to the change in schedule his mother was not there, and the minor plaintiff began crossing Dodds with other students. At that time mother had just arrived at the east side of Dodds and Eighteenth. Her shouts to her son to stop were of no avail, and he was struck by an automobile.

I. MOTHER’S ALLEGED CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE

The trial court found that Mother was not guilty of contributory negligence. City contends that she was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to be at the bus stop in time to enable her to escort her minor son across Dodds Avenue.

Mother testified that the bus normally arrived at the Pro Re Bona stop during the early part of this school year around 3:50 to 4:00 p.m. each day. She stated she would normally leave home at 3:30, walk down Dodds Avenue to Eighteenth where she would cross over to the west side of Dodds and wait at the corner of the Pro Re Bona nursery for the bus to arrive.

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855 S.W.2d 583, 1992 Tenn. App. LEXIS 1049, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bowers-v-city-of-chattanooga-tennctapp-1992.