54 Ga. App. 103 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1936
1. Where a corporation, engaged in the business of selling ice, coal, and refrigerators, has in its employment a local manager whose duties are to travel over territory and sell the merchandise of the corporation and make collections for sales, and a general manager for the territorial district in which the local agency is located, who is necessarily by virtue of his office (where it does not appear otherwise) authorized to do all acts connected with the particular trade or business of the corporation within the territory (Columbus Show-Case Co. v. Brinson, 128 Ga. 487, 489, 57 S. E. 871), and who as such has authority to permit any one to travel with the local manager in the corporation’s automobile which 'the local manager is using for the purpose of .attending to the business of the corporation; and where the local
2. Where the operator of an automobile along a public highway at night, when the automobile is within about 100 feet of another automobile which is approaching from the opposite direction with headlights burning and in plain view, suddenly and without cheeking the speed of the automobile steers and swerves the automobile from the right side of the roadway upon which it is being operated, across to the left side of the roadway directly in the path of the approaching automobile and collides therewith, the inference is authorized that the operator of the first automobile when swerving it to the left as stated is guilty of gross negligence in the operation of the automobile.
3. Under the above rulings, the petition, in which it was alleged that the plaintiff while riding in the defendant’s automobile was injured as a result of the gross negligence of the defendant through its agent in the operation of the automobile, set out a cause of action against the corporation, and the court erred in sustaining the general demurrer.
Judgment reversed.