Morton v. Martin Aviation Corp.

325 S.W.2d 524, 205 Tenn. 41, 9 McCanless 41, 1959 Tenn. LEXIS 339
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedApril 8, 1959
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 325 S.W.2d 524 (Morton v. Martin Aviation Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morton v. Martin Aviation Corp., 325 S.W.2d 524, 205 Tenn. 41, 9 McCanless 41, 1959 Tenn. LEXIS 339 (Tenn. 1959).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Burnett

delivered the opinion of the Court.

' Both parties hereto have heretofore filed petitions for certiorari, both of which have been granted. Arguments have been heard and we now have the questions presented for determination.

This suit was originally brought by the Aviation Corporation against Morton for damages to an airplane which had been turned over to Morton for a flight by him from Memphis to Little Rock and return which was wrecked when he was about 55 minutes out of Little Rock on his return to Memphis. The declaration as amended [45]*45in two connts alleged various and sundry acts of negligence on the part of Morton which caused the damage to the plane. The issues were made in the Circuit Court (a plea of not guilty and other pleas) and the matter tried to a jury. After submitting the evidence of both parties and the charge of the Court to the jury that body rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $3,000. A seasonable appeal was taken from this judgment, after motions for a new trial had been overruled, to the Court of Appeals where that body reversed and remanded for a new trial because of an error in part of the instruction of the court to the jury. The Court of Appeals overruled all other errors which were 10 or 12 in number.

Briefly the facts surrounding this lawsuit are, that the Aviation Corporation operates a flying school in Memphis and had enrolled as one of its advanced students the defendant, Morton. Morton had received sufficient instructions so that he was permitted to take solo flights. Students having sufficient training took solo flights in the vicinity of the school’s airport and were permitted to take cross-country flights to airports at other points and land at such ports and then take off and return to the plaintiff’s airport.

On July 9, 1955, Morton, as a part of his solo cross-country training was authorized by one of the instructors of the Corporation to fly to Little Bock, Arkansas, and return on the same day. He was assigned a Stinson Airplane for this flight. He left the airport at Memphis at about 9:00 o ’clock in the morning and arrived at Little Bock at 10:35 o ’clock the same morning. He left Little Bock for his return to Memphis at about noon on the same day and when he was about 55 minutes out of Little [46]*46Rock the engine on the air motor died and he made a sndden emergency landing, striking a rice levee at the edge of a cotton field in Arkansas where the plane turned over on its hack and was, for all commercial purposes, destroyed in that landing.

The plaintiff testified through various experts and instructors employed by it that the airplane had been turned over to Morton in a good condition. It likewise showed by these experts and instructors that Morton had been instructed as to certain procedures to be followed in the operation of an airplane and that from what they found of the airplane after the wreck and certain things about it that Morton had not followed the instructions that he had been taught and thus that it was due to his negligence that the airplane was wrecked. The jury could reach such a conclusion from the evidence. A statement given by Morton after the wreck was likewise offered and certain conflicts developed in this statement and what they said that he had been taught to do and what he had done. Of course Morton denied these things and claimed that he had operated the plane entirely according to his instructions and that the wreck was due to a fault in the plane and not any negligent operation on his part. These things obviously made a fact question for determination of the jury. Among the other things at issue was the expert testimony as to the number of hours required to fly a solo flight, what this was, and the testimony of the defendant as to how many hours he had had was likewise a jury question.

The Court of Appeals makes this very apt statement which is clearly dedueible from this record. The statement is:

[47]*47‘ ‘ * * * the flight being justified from the training he had pins the farther fact that he possessed an unre-voked Private Pilot’s Permit or License, it seems to ns that the real issne involved here is whether or not, based on the whole record, the defendant’s negligence as alleged in the declaration, is the efficient, or in the nsnal term, proximate canse of the damages resulting to the plane from the crash of the emergency landing. It mnst be considered that this flight was a very simple one. It did not require special maneuver training, that is, such as flying in certain figures or under dangerous weather conditions, etc. ’ ’

Assignments of Error I and VII, in the Court of Appeals are that:

1 ‘ * * * there was no evidence of actionable negligence shown on the part of the defendant.”

In overruling these two assignments of error the Court of Appeals says:

“If the Court had given the jury proper instruction, the jury could have found from the proof that the defendant was negligent or at least there was sufficient proof from which the minds of reasonable men might differ and, as said many times, in passing upon an assignment of the character set forth in these two assignments as to motions for directed verdicts, we must consider only the evidence favorable to the opposing party disregarding the countervailing evidence.”

Thus it is that the Court of Appeals agrees and concurs with the trial court that there was evidence of negligence under this record to go to the jury. After reading and re-reading the evidence we are satisfied that there is a jury question made under the evidence here [48]*48presented as to whether or not this defendant was negligent.

The trial court was reversed by the Court of Appeals because of its charge as follows:

“With regard to the law of bailments, as applicable to this case, the Court gives you this instruction: Ladies and Gentlemen, in the law of bailments, there are those known as the bailee and the bailor. For the purpose of making it clear, the Martin Aviation Corporation would be called the bailor'; and the defendant, David Alexander Morton, Junior, would be called the bailee.
“With that in mind, this is the instruction of the Court: Ladies and gentlemen, I charge you that in a bailment of property, such as the letting of an airplane for flight, it is the duty of the bailer — the one who lets the airplane — to use the reasonable and ordinary care to furnish the bailee — the one to whom the plane is let —with a plane that is mechanically safe for flight. It is the duty of the bailee — the one who receives the plane —to use reasonable and ordinary care in the use and operation of the plane so as not to injure, damage, or destroy the plane; and to return the plane to the bailor —the person who lets the plane — in as good condition as it was when it was let to him, ordinary wear and tear from the use of the plane being excepted.
“Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, when an article, such as an airplane, is let by a bailor to a bailee, and the proof shows that the plane, when let, was in an undamaged condition, it is the duty of the bailee — the one to whom the plane was let — to show the damage to the airplane was not due to his fault or negligence.”

[49]

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Morton v. Martin Aviation Corporation
325 S.W.2d 524 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1959)

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Bluebook (online)
325 S.W.2d 524, 205 Tenn. 41, 9 McCanless 41, 1959 Tenn. LEXIS 339, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morton-v-martin-aviation-corp-tenn-1959.