Georgia Power Co. v. Braswell

173 S.E. 763, 48 Ga. App. 654, 1934 Ga. App. LEXIS 153
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedFebruary 28, 1934
Docket23063
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 173 S.E. 763 (Georgia Power Co. v. Braswell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Georgia Power Co. v. Braswell, 173 S.E. 763, 48 Ga. App. 654, 1934 Ga. App. LEXIS 153 (Ga. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

MacIntyre, J.

The plaintiff, an aged, feeble, and infirm Con[655]*655federate veteran, boarded a street-car of the defendant, Georgia Power Company, paid his fare, and started towards the rear to get a seat, when the car was suddenly and without warning jerked forward by the defendant’s servant operating the car, causing the plaintiff to fall and injuring him. The street-car was being operated by one man, known as a eonductor-motorman, and there were no other servants or agents of the defendant in charge of the car at the time of the injury. The defendant’s servant, in charge of the street-car, knew of the plaintiff’s feeble and infirm condition, yet he did not stop the car for a long enough time to enable the plaintiff to get on board and get seated, before starting the car suddenly. The plaintiff filed his petition against the defendant and set forth the above facts. He alleged also that the defendant was negligent in starting said car so suddenly and violently as to cause the plaintiff to fall, in not warning him that the car would be started before he could get a seat, and in causing said car to move forward suddenly, without warning, knowing that the plaintiff had not yet had time to seat himself. The plaintiff charged that the defendant was also negligent in having the street-car, at the time and place of the injury to the plaintiff, operated by only dne person, a eonductor-motorman, that such an operator, in performing the duties assigned to-him by the defendant, has no opportunity to observe the body of the car and to properly protect and look after the welfare and safety of the passengers, and of an infirm and aged person, such as the plaintiff was. The plaintiff alleged that it was the defendant’s duty, not only to see to it that the plaintiff boarded the street-car in safety, but that he should have a reasonable time in which to get safely seated in the ear.

The defendant demurred to that part of the plaintiff’s petition which sets up that the operation of the street-car by one man under the conditions and at the time set forth in the petition constitutes negligence on the part of the defendant or was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury, because the allegations therein contained are insufficient in law to show any breach of duty on the part of the defendant to the plaintiff, growing out of such manner of operation of its street-car at the time and place of the injury to the plaintiff. The court overruled this demurrer and refused to strike these allegations from the petition; and to this judgment the defendant excepted pendente lite. In the bill of exceptions error is assigned on [656]*656these exceptions. The case proceeded to trial and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $1000. The defendant moved for a new trial, the motion was overruled, and to this judgment the movant excepts.

Questions of negligence, simple or gross, and questions of whether or not, under the circumstances of a particular case, the defendant exercised towards the plaintiff, a passenger on a street-railway, that extraordinary care the law puts upon carriers of passengers, are usually for determination by a jury, after proper instruction from the court, and only in plain and unmistakable cases will they be decided by the courts as matters of law.

Whether the defendant exercised towards the plaintiff the extraordinary diligence and care required of it, in having in operation at the time and place of the alleged injury to the plaintiff, he being an aged, feeble and inñrm person, a street-car operated by only one person, a conductor-motorman, is a question for the jury to pass upon, under all the facts and circumstances of the case. The effect of the allegation in the petition that the operation by the defendant, at the time and place in question, of a one-man street-car, constituted negligence on the part of the defendant, was not that it was negligence for the defendant company to operate one-man street-cars upon its lines, but that under the conditions described in the petition, as to the plaintiff, it might constitute negligence; and it was proper for the jury to consider this, in determining whether the defendant had exercised towards the plaintiff that extraordinary care and diligence it was bound to exercise for the safety of the plaintiff as a passenger upon one of its street-cars, having regard to all the facts and circumstances of the case, including the feebleness and age of the plaintiff. See Civil Code (1910), § 2713; Holly v. Atlanta Street R., 61 Ga. 215 (34 Am. R. 97). When a petition states the facts upon which the claim of negligence is based, a general allegation in the petition, following a statement of the facts relied upon to show negligence, will be construed to have reference to the particular facts pleaded; and, so construed, it is not subject to special demurrer. Fuller v. Inman, 10 Ga. App. 680 (4) (74 S. E. 287); Rome Ry. &c. Co. v. King, 30 Ga. App. 231 (117 S. E. 464). It being a jury question whether the defendant, in operating a one-man street-car at the time and place of the injury to the plaintiff, exercised the degree of care and skill [657]*657it owed the plaintiff passenger, the court did not err in overruling the special demurrer to that portion of the petition which alleged that the defendant did not exercise such care and skill, and in submitting this issue to the jury.

There was no error in refusing to admit in evidence a petition of the Macon Railway & Light Company, filed with the mayor and council of the City of Macon, and the findings of the committee on public safety of the council, involving the effort of that street-railway company to put one-man street-cars on its line in that city in the year 1924. Such evidence could not have a bearing on the question whether or not the Georgia Power Company, the defendant railway company in the present tort action, had exercised the extraordinary care and diligence owed by it to the plaintiff, as required by law of a carrier of passengers, under the facts and circumstances of the case, and at the time and place of the injury to the plaintiff. Such evidence could not have a bearing on whether or not in a single instance, under the peculiar facts and circumstances of that case, it was negligence towards the particular passenger involved in the matter for the company to operate a one-man street-car. Such a question was peculiarly one for the jury to pass upon, under all the facts and circumstances of the case, bearing on the injury in question, and bearing on the time and place of the operation of the street-ear involved in the action being tried.

The court charged the jury that “The law says, in all cases against railroad companies for damages done to persons or property, proof of injury inflicted by the running of locomotives or ears of such company shall be prima facie evidence of the want of reasonable skill and care on the part of the servants of the company in reference to such injury. Now, what is meant by that is, if nothing else was done, no evidence introduced, there would be a prima facie case on the part of the plaintiff. That could be rebutted by proof, and if it was rebutted and shown they had exercised reasonable care and skill, it would be your duty to consider it.” It is contended that this charge was error for the reasons set out in Seaboard Air-Line Ry. Co. v. Fountain, supra. The vice in the charge is in the last sentence thereof. The old presumption statute, section 2780 of the Code of 1910, has been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v.

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Bluebook (online)
173 S.E. 763, 48 Ga. App. 654, 1934 Ga. App. LEXIS 153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/georgia-power-co-v-braswell-gactapp-1934.