57 Ga. App. 136 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1937
Lead Opinion
1. On the trial of a case brought by a husband and minor children against the owner of a truck and the operator thereof, to recover the value of the life of the wife and the mother of the plaintiffs, whose death it was alleged was caused from the automobile in which she was riding, with another person driving, colliding in the night-time with the truck with a trailer attached thereto, as a result of alleged negligence of the owner of the truck through the owner’s agent, the driver of the truck, and
2. A charge that if the jury believed that the truck was parked within eight feet of the center line of the highway this would be negligence per se, and that if the jury believed that such parking of the truck was the proximate cause of the death of the deceased
3. The charge of the court that if the jury should believe that the defendant did not have “at least two lamps of approximately equal candle-power mounted on the right and left side of said truck, as required by law,” this would be negligence per se, while being an excerpt from the provisions of the statute (Code, § 68-302) which the court had already given in charge to the jury, which statute, as charged by the court, went further and referred to the lights required as being “front lamps,” was not a clear statement that the lamps referred to had reference to the front lamps on the truck, but it was calculated to cause the jury to infer that the court was instructing them that the two lamps required by law were not the front lamps as the law required, but were lamps on each side of the truck. The charge was error. Sutton, J., dissents.
4. Since there is no statute requiring that a truck which is backing on a highway have a lamp or a light on the left side of the truck, and the only statute in reference thereto, as found in Code, § 68-302, is that “every motor vehicle, tractor, and trailer shall have on the rear thereof, and to the left of the axis thereof, one lamp capable of displaying a red light visible for a distance of at least one hundred feet behind such vehicle,” the charge of the court that if the jury should believe that the truck was parked on the highway, or was backing on the highway, at the time and place complained of, “without having at least one lamp or light on the left side thereof, that would be negligence per se,” was not
5. There is no statute of this State prohibiting the running of an automobile or a truck or a trailer backwards on either side of the road. Where the evidence authorized the finding that the defendant company’s truck, with the trailer attached, was being backed, and that the automobile in which the deceased was riding ran into the trailer, and the deceased was killed, it was error for the court to charge the jury that if the driver of the truck “backed” the truck “with the left end of the trailer on the left-hand side of the center of said highway,” looking towards the direction which the truck was facing, that would be negligence per se. Such act was not a violation of law, and therefore was not negligence per se. The charge was error prejudicial to the defendants, and requires the grant of a new trial. See Eubanks v. Mullis, 51 Ga. App. 728 (181 S. E. 604).
6. Whether or not the deceased, who was a married woman, and the lady driver of the automobile in which the deceased was riding, were guilty of any breach of propriety by being at the time in company with two men, one of whom was a married man, and in going with them to a place where barbecue was sold, and to a dance-hall, this was not a fact which was relevant to any issue in the case. The court did not err in instructing the jury that it had nothing to do with the ease, and to give no consideration to it.
7. The value of the life of a wife and mother, for whose homicide the husband and children are seeking to recover damages, is not determinable solely from evidence as to the amount of money which the deceased may have earned as a worker for wages, or
See Metropolitan Street R. Co. v. Johnson, 91 Ga. 466, 471 (18 S. E. 816); Standard Oil Co. v. Reagan, 15 Ga. App. 571 (9) (84 S. E. 69); Savannah Electric Co. v. Dixon, 18 Ga. App. 314 (3) (89 S. E. 373); S. A. L. Ry. Co. v. Sarman, 38 Ga. App. 637, 640 (11-13) (144 S. E. 810); Georgia Railway & Power Co. v. Shaw, 25 Ga. App. 146 (3) (102 S. E. 904); City of East Point v. Christian, 40 Ga. App. 633, 640 (151 S. E. 42). The charge of the court to the jury, that “in determining the value of the services of the deceased as a wife and mother, as well as a worker, the jury may consider all the facts and circumstances of the case” was not subject to the objection that it was not authorized by the pleadings, and that there was no evidence of any services performed by the deceased as a wife and mother.
8. The instructions contained in the charge of the court as to the method of arriving at the cash value of the life of the deceased were in substantially the same language as the charge in Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Wallis, 29 Ga. App. 706 (9) (116 S. E. 883), and, for the same reason as was held in that case, were not error. It is immaterial that in the case now before the court the mortality tables may not have been in evidence, and that in the case cited such tables were in evidence.
9. As the judgment is reversed, it is unnecessary to pass on the other assignments of error which relate to the alleged excessiveness of the verdict for the plaintiffs, and to the failure of the court to declare a mistrial on account of certain language used by the plaintiffs’ counsel in argument to the jury. The court erred in overruling the defendants’ motion for new trial.
Judgment reversed.,
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting from the rulings in divisions 3, 4, and 5 of the opinion. While a portion of the charge dealt with in division 5 of the opinion is in part an incorrect statement, still, when taken and considered in connection with the .balance of the charge, and especially that portion of the charge immediately preceding the part here excepted to, it should not he held as reversible error. No reversible error being shown, I think the judgment should be affirmed.