King v. Sharpe

99 S.E.2d 283, 96 Ga. App. 71, 1957 Ga. App. LEXIS 507
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJune 14, 1957
Docket36749
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 99 S.E.2d 283 (King v. Sharpe) 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
King v. Sharpe, 99 S.E.2d 283, 96 Ga. App. 71, 1957 Ga. App. LEXIS 507 (Ga. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinions

Quillian, J.

D. C. King, plaintiff in error here, will be referred to in this opinion as the plaintiff; William Paul Sharpe and James K. Puckett, defendants in error in this court, will be called the defendants, the parties having occupied those respective relations to the case in the trial court. However, where in the discussion it is necessary to distinguish the defendant to whom reference is made, he will be referred to by name.

The only general ground of the motion for new trial which requires discussion is the third general ground which presents the contention that the verdict was without evidence to support it. That ground presents a question that required careful review and thorough analysis of the proof offered by both the plaintiff and defendants.

The plaintiff’s evidence supporting every allegation of the petition was ample and unquestionably authorized a verdict in his [76]*76favor. However, there was a sharp conflict in the evidence concerning the vital issue as to whose negligence proximately caused the collision resulting in the injuries to the plaintiff’s person and damage to his truck. The plaintiff prima facie proved by very clear and strong evidence that the collision resulted from the acts of negligence imputed to the defendant in the petition. His evidence amply supported the theory upon which the plaintiff predicated his right to recover damages. The theory was that at the entrance of the south end of the bridge from which the plaintiff approached there was a depression in the road, so that the bridge was higher than the roadway and) that this condition presented a hazard to one who attempted to enter the bridge at a high speed; that the plaintiff gained entrance to the bridge from the opposite direction and had passed nearly across it, when one of the defendants operating the truck of the other, which was drawing what is known as a pole trailer after it, that is a trailer attached to the tractor of the truck by an iron pipe, came down a hill at a very high and dangerous speed, sixty miles per hour, and without slackening the speed of the truck entered the bridge, with the result that when the trailer struck the elevation at the mouth of the bridge it bounced high into the air, careened across on the plaintiff’s extreme right side of the road and upon the plaintiff’s pickup truck. The plaintiff’s proof clearly showed he was driving on his right side of the road, and had his truck under perfect control, and when he saw the peril posed by the recklessness of the defendant driver, he brought his truck to a stop.

The defendants’ evidence showed that the collision was entirely attributable to the plaintiff’s negligence. The defendant driver, James K. Puckett, testified that he approached and went upon the bridge at a speed of approximately thirty-five or forty miles per hour; that he drove the defendant Sharpe’s 28-foot trailer truck onto the bridge from its end nearest Lilbum and proceeded across the bridge until the cab of the trailer truck was within ten feet of the mouth of the bridge at its Lawrenceville end; that he was careful, and that the trailer truck was on its side of the road, allowing sufficient room for a vehicle it met to go upon and traverse the bridge; that at the point of the bridge near its Lawrenceville end he met the plaintiff, Mr. King, who had driven his [77]*77G.M.C. truck onto the bridge after the trailer truck was on the bridge; that Mr. King was “then going from one side of the road to the other” wiggling so to speak; that at the time the cab of the trailer truck was off the Lawrenceville end of the bridge he felt the jolt of an impact; that the coupling was not broken by the trailer truck passing over a bump, but by “the impact of being hit by Mr. King’s vehicle.” The defendant Sharpe who preceded the trailer truck in his automobile corroborated Puckett as to speed. Mr. Sharpe testified that he went upon Highway No. 29 from a road that led from Tucker through Lilburn at a point about three-tenths of a mile from the Lilburn end of the bridge; that it was down hill to the bridge; that the trailer truck driven by Puckett immediately followed him onto the bridge; Mr. Sharpe further testified that he was driving at a speed of thirty-five to forty miles per hour and that his automobile was about five hundred feet beyond the bridge when the collision occurred. Other witnesses who were not present when it occurred testified, from observing the position of the wrecked vehicles, that they were near the Lawrenceville end of the bridge, and two witnesses, both to some extent familiar with pipes of the kind that joined the units of the tractor trailer, and who observed the pipe after it was broken, testified, that in their opinion, passing over the bump in the road would probably not cause the pole of the trailer truck to break and the vehicle to come apart, though it was possible for it to have that effect.

It is ably urged by the plaintiff’s counsel that Puckett could not have known what caused the impact that resulted in the breaking of the pole which held the cab and trailer of the Sharpe truck together, since he admitted that he did not know that the trailer had come loose from the cab until he was some distance across the bridge. It is pointed out that Puckett, according to several witnesses, said, at the scene of the collision, that he thought the trailer struck the abutment of the bridge. Puckett could not remember whether he made the admission or not, but positively testified upon the trial that the trailer was struck by the plaintiff’s truck. It is also insisted by the plaintiff that since Puckett admitted he was not looking back and was not in a position to observe what caused the impact which broke the coupling [78]*78pole holding the units of the trailer truck together, his testimony that it was broken when the trailer collided with the plaintiff’s pickup truck was of no probative value. The evidence was undisputed that the bridge was about one hundred feet long; that the bump or elevation that the plaintiff contended caused the pole to break was at the Lilburn end of the bridge and Puckett testified positively that he felt the jolt of the impact when he met the plaintiff’s pickup truck very near the Lawrenceville end of the bridge. Puckett’s testimony was direct as to where he felt the jolt and as to- the place on the bridge where the trailer truck and that of the plaintiff met. It was circumstantial as to the trailer’s actually coming in contact with the plaintiff’s truck since he did not actually see the collision. But from his testimony the jury could have been legitimately influenced to find that the coupling pole was broken when the trailer came in contact with the plaintiff’s pickup truck at the point on;.the bridge where Puckett professed to have felt the jolt. '-f

The rule is that a fact shown by direct, uifpontradicted, reasonable and unimpeached evidence cannot be disproved by circumstantial evidence consistent with suchf direct evidence. Neill v. Hill, 32 Ga. App. 381, 382 (b) (123 S. E. 30); Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta v. Haynie, 46 Ga. App. 522 (168 S. E. 112). But the circumstantial evidence in this instance was not consistent with, but contrary to the direct evidence of the plaintiff and his witnesses. The comparative weight to be given direct and circumstantial evidence is in such circumstances properly determined by the jury. Saunders v. State, 43 Ga. App. 69 (158 S. E. 433); Moughon v. State, 57 Ga. 102 (5); Armstrong v. Penn, 105 Ga. 229, 230 (5) (31 S. E. 158).

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King v. Sharpe
99 S.E.2d 283 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1957)

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Bluebook (online)
99 S.E.2d 283, 96 Ga. App. 71, 1957 Ga. App. LEXIS 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/king-v-sharpe-gactapp-1957.