Stone v. O'Neal

90 S.W.2d 548, 19 Tenn. App. 512
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedSeptember 7, 1935
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 90 S.W.2d 548 (Stone v. O'Neal) 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
Stone v. O'Neal, 90 S.W.2d 548, 19 Tenn. App. 512 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

CROWNOVER, J.

This was an action for damages by the plaintiff in error, J. C. Stone, for personal injuries sustained by him when he was run over by an automobile belonging to the defendant in error, Frank O’Neal. The defendant denied liability.

*514 The case was tried by the judge and a jury. It resulted in a verdict and judgment for the defendant, Frank O’Neal.

The plaintiff in error’s (J. C. Stone’s) motion for a new trial was. overruled, and he has appealed in error to this court, assigning errors, which are, in substance, that the court erred in rendering the judgment, because:

(1) There is no material evidence to support the verdict of the jury.

(2) B. D. Kingree, Sr., an attorney for the defendant, made an improper and prejudicial argument in respect to the perjury of the plaintiff.

(3) The jury, in deliberating upon their verdict, improperly took into consideration the fact that the plaintiff had instituted this suit, on the pauper’s oath.

(4) B. D. Kingree, Sr., an attorney for the defendant, made an improper and prejudicial argument in respect to the plaintiff instituting this suit upon the pauper’s oath.

The facts of the case are as follows: On Saturday evening, April 15, 1933, the minor son of the defendant took the defendant’s automobile to go riding with a group of young friends, with the defendant’s permission. The son, Charles O’Neal, picked up two-other boys and went out to the home of some young ladies with whom they had an engagement. They took the young ladies and rode around with them. They drove to Murfreesboro and back, and had started to take the young ladies to their homes, on the Shelby-ville-Wartrace highway. When they had gone outside of Shelby-ville, the defendant’s son, who had been driving the car, asked one of the other young men, Billy Temple, to do some driving. Young O’Neal and the young lady who was sitting beside him on the front seat got into the rear seat, and young Temple and the girl who was with him got on the front seat, young Temple doing the driving.

Young Temple drove on toward the young ladies’ home. As he-was driving up a slight rise and around a curve, he saw an automobile on the same side of the road as he was driving on. He checked his speed, thinking that the car was turning around, and slowed down to about fifteen miles per hour. As he got near the car, he saw that it was parked on the highway. He saw that there-was not enough room to pass on the right-hand side of the road, so he pulled toward the left and started around the car.

The car was parked on the road, at an angle, with the lights shining across the road into a field. The right front wheel was near the center of the road and the rear left wheel was near the edge of the road.

As young Temple drove around on the left side, a bump was-felt by the occupants of the car, and they looked back and saw a. *515 man lying in tbeir pathway, which they had just traversed, a few feet beyond the rear of the parked car. Temple brought the car to a stop, and all of the young people ran back to the man, and learned that he was the plaintiff, Stone.

They found that he was unconscious and bleeding profusely. As they bent over him, they heard a woman’s voice calling from the car: “Mr. Stone, Mr. Stone.”

They looked up and saw her getting out of the car. The woman was Ruby Falk, and she came over and kept crying, “Mr. Stone, Mr. Stone.”

The boys asked the women if she was with Stone, and, at first, she told them that he had picked her up. Later she admitted to them that she was with him.

The boys picked up Stone and carried him to the hospital. They then carried the Falk woman to her home.

Later the boys brought the plaintiff’s son back with them to get plaintiff’s car. The young people testified that he came out to the scene of the accident and got a pistol out of the plaintiff’s car and put it in his pocket.

The plaintiff’s version of the accident differs from that of the young people. He states that on the night of the accident he had left the store of his son in Shelbyville with several orders of groceries to be delivered out on the Wartraee road. He said he had gone out to the point where the accident occurred and found that he had a flat tire. He got out of his car, obtained his pump, and was stooping over to pump up the tire, when a car, traveling very fast, came around his car and struck him, and dragged him, rendering him unconscious, and inflicting serious bodily injuries.

He said that there was enough room on the right-hand side of the road (the shoulders of the road were about six feet wide) for the car to have passed on that side.

He stated that he was alone, and that he did not have a pistol in the ear with him. His son denied also that he had taken any pistol from his father’s car.

All of the young people in the defendant’s car testified that they had looked into the plaintiff’s car, and that there were no groceries in the car. They further testified that the pump was not on the ground outside the car, but was inside the plaintiff’s car after the accident.

The young people also testified that there was broken glass on the ground near where the plaintiff was lying. They testified that the ears did not touch, and that no glass was broken on either of them, but that the glass was from a broken bottle.

1. We are of the opinion that' the plaintiff in error’s /'Stone’s) first assignment of error, that there was no material evi- *516 denee to support tlie verdict, must be overruled. There was a conflict in the evidence, and the jury decided in favor of the defendant.

“If there is any material evidence to support a verdict, concurred in by the tidal judge, it will not be disturbed by an appellate court.” National Life & Acc. Ins. Co. v. Yates, 16 Tenn. App., 344, 347, 64 S. W. (2d), 524, 526.

2. We are of the opinion that the plaintiff in error’s second assignment, that B. D. Kingree, Sr., an attorney for the defendant, made an improper and prejudicial argument in respect to the perjury of the plaintiff, must be overruled also. The language complained of is as follows:

“When the plaintiff swore that this Falk woman was not in the car with him, he swore falsely, and committed deliberate perjury. Five credible witnesses testified she was out there with him in the car, and that they carried her home, and the little Morgan girl says that after the accident, the plaintiff came to her home and asked if she knew the woman that was in the car with him, and she said she did not and he then asked her if she thought she would know her if she were to see her again, and she said, ‘Yes.’ Defendant does not deny what the little Morgan girl says. He has sworn falsely, and ought to be indicted for perjury. I have practiced law at this Bar for more than thirty years, and I do not believe that you will ever find evidence more false and brazen than that of the plaintiff when he swore that Falk was not in the car with him.”

The attorney for the plaintiff objected, but the court overruled his objection.

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Bluebook (online)
90 S.W.2d 548, 19 Tenn. App. 512, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stone-v-oneal-tennctapp-1935.