Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Godard

• Decision Date: 16 February 1955
• Docket Number: No. 18820,18820
• Citation: Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Godard, 211 Ga. 373, 86 S.E.2d 311 (Ga. 1955)
• Parties: ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY et al. v. Mrs. J. B. GODARD, Executrix.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 311

86 S.E.2d 311

211 Ga. 373

ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY et al. v. Mrs. J. B. GODARD, Executrix.

No. 18820.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Feb. 16, 1955.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The allegations of the petition set out circumstances, known to the defendants from which the defendants might reasonably have foreseen the danger to their employees of a criminal attack by a third person, and hence the allegations were sufficient to raise questions for the jury as to whether the defendants were under a duty to exercise ordinary care to protect their employees from such danger, and as to whether the defendants had breached this duty, or were negligent, in any of the particulars alleged. The court did not err in overruling the defendants' general demurrer.

2. The allegations that the defendants were negligent 'In knowingly maintaining [their] depot in an isolated part of Madison, out of sight and hearing of officers of the law, without maintaining any guard or patrol of said premises,' was subject to demurrer upon the ground that in and of itself this allegation did not constitute a legal basis for recovery.

(a) The court erred in charging the jury that the plaintiff would be entitled to recover if he proved any one or more of his alleged grounds of negligence, where the ground above quoted did not constitute a legal basis for a recovery.

3. Except as above noted, the special demurrers were properly overruled.

4-8. Special grounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 of the motion for a new trial are without merit.

9. There being no evidence to support the essential allegations of the petition that the defendants well knew that dangerous, reckless, and lawless characters and persons who were strangers frequented the premises described during the night time, including prowlers and hoboes, the verdict in favor of the plaintiff is without evidence to support it, and it was error to overrule the general grounds of the motion for a new trial.

10. Since a new trial must be had because of the errors pointed out in divisions 2 and 9 of this opinion, it becomes unnecessary to pass upon the ground of the motion complaining that the verdict in favor of the plaintiff is excessive.

E. A. Baker, Sr., sued Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company to recover damages for pain and suffering, lost earnings and medical expenses alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants. The plaintiff died before the trial of the case, and Mrs. J. B. Godard, as Executrix of Baker's will, was made party plaintiff. The petition as amended alleged in substance: On July 23, 1951, the plaintiff was employed as a clerk by the defendants. As a part of his employment, he was required to work late into the night and until midnight at the defendants' depot in Madison, Georgia. The depot was in an isolated part of Madison and was out of the sight and hearing of any policemen, patrolmen, or other officers of the law. The depot is located on the south side of the railroad tracks, which extend in an eastwest direction, and there is no light of any kind maintained by the defendants on the south side of the depot, causing a dark, unlighted area. The defendants maintain no guard or patrol of the premises. The aforesaid conditions have been permitted to exist by the defendants, although dangerous characters and persons who are strangers frequent the premises during the nighttime, including prowlers and hoboes. The plaintiff's duties required him to make trips into the unlighted area and so to expose himself to the danger of being attacked and robbed by reckless and lawless persons lurking unseen in the darkness; and the situation created by the defendants afforded opportunity and temptation to lawless persons to enrich temselves by robbery of the plaintiff and by burglary of the defendants' offices and depot, while at the same time placing the plaintiff at the disadvantage of not being able to see his attacker until too late to defend himself. The situation above described was well known at all times to the defendants, but they did nothing to correct the dangerous situation, and did not exercise reasonable care to light the building and area or to guard or patrol the same in any manner. Shortly before midnight on July 23, 1951, the plaintiff's duties required him to go into the unlighted portion of the building and area where he was set upon and brutally beaten by a dangerous, reckless, and lawless person for the purpose of robbing the plaintiff and of robbing and burglarizing the defendants' offices and depot. As a result of the attack, the plaintiff suffered certain enumerated injuries. The specified negligence on the part of the defendants which proximately caused the plaintiff's injuries was as follows: in knowingly maintaining their depot with a portion thereof, and the area on the south side, unlighted, while knowing that dangerous characters, hoboes, and prowlers frequented said area; in knowingly maintaining their depot in an isolated part of Madison, out of sight and hearing of officers of the law, without main taining any guard or patrol of said premises; in knowingly requiring the plaintiff in performance of his duties to work late at night and to visit unlighted portions of the building and to expose himself to the danger of being attacked and robbed by reckless and lawless persons lurking unseen in the darkness; in knowingly creating a situation whereby opportunity and temptation were offered to lawless persons to rob the plaintiff and the defendants' offices and depot, while at the same time placing plaintiff under the disadvantage of not being able to see his attacker until too late to defend himself; in maintaining and creating the situation in this case whereby the plaintiff was beaten for the purposes of robbery; and in not furnishing the plaintiff a safe place in which to work.

The defendants' general and special demurrers were overruled, to which judgment the defendants excepted. The jury found for the plaintiff, and the defendants also excepted to the denial of their amended motion for new trial, and carried the case by writ of error to the Court of Appeals. When this case was first transferred to this court by the Court of Appeals, because the Judges of that court were equally divided on the question as to whether the trial court erred in overruling the general grounds of the motion for a new trial, it then appeared that no decision had been reached by the Court of Appeals upon other questions presented by the record which might require a reversal and render unnecessary a ruling on the general grounds of the motion, and the case was returned to the Court of Appeals. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Godard, 211 Ga. 41, 83 S.E.2d 591. It appears from the record now before us that the Court of Appeals has, by a majority opinion, ruled upon all questions presented by the record, affirming the trial court except as to the judgment overruling the general grounds of the motion for a new trial, upon which question the Judges of that court are still equally divided, Gardner, P. J., Townsend, and Nichols, JJ., being of the opinion that the judgment overruling the motion should be affirmed, and Felton, C. J., Quillian, and Carlisle, JJ., being of the opinion that the judgment should be reversed, and the case comes back to this court for decision.

After a careful study of the record and of the briefs of opposing counsel, we find a correct statement of the facts has been made by the Court of Appeals, and divisions 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, of its majority opinion, correctly dispose of the questions there dealt with, and we have used them in divisions 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of this opinion substantially as written by the Court of Appeals.

Kay Tipton, Madison, Weldon C. Boyd, Greensboro, for plaintiffs in error.

Randall Evans, Jr., Thomson, for defendant in error.

HAWKINS, Justice (after stating the foregoing facts).

1. Under the ruling in Lillie v. Thompson, 332 U.S. 459, 68 S.Ct. 140, 92 L.Ed. 73, and the principle stated in Yellow Cab Co. of Atlanta v. Carmichael, 33 Ga.App. 364, 126 S.E. 269, in 65 C.J.S., Negligence, § 111f, p. 700, and in Restatement of the Law of Torts, § 302, Comment (n), the general demurrer to the petition was properly overruled. In the Lillie case, supra [332 U.S. 459, 68 S.Ct. 141], the plaintiff alleged in substance: 'Respondent required her [petitioner], a 22-year-old telegraph operator, to work alone between 11:30 p. m and 7:30 a. m. in a one-room frame building situated in an isolated part of respondent's railroad yards in Memphis. Though respondent had reason to know the yards were frequented by dangerous characters, he failed to exercise reasonable care to light the building and its surroundings or to guard or patrol it in any way. Petitioner's duties were to receive and deliver messages to men operating trains in the yard. In order for the trainmen to get the messages it was necessary for them to come to the building at irregular intervals throughout the night, and it was petitioner's duty to admit them when they knocked. Because there were no windows in the building's single door or on the side of the building in which to door was located, petitioner could identify persons seeking entrance only by unlocking and opening the door. About 1:30 a. m. on the night of her injury petitioner responded to a knock, thinking that some of respondent's trainmen were seeking admission. She opened the door, and before she could close it a man entered and beat her with a large piece of iron, seriously and permanently injuring her.' The allegation that the respondent had reason to know that the yards were frequented by dangerous characters sufficed to charge the trustee with the duty to exercise ordinary care to guard against injury from dangerous characters. The general rule that the intervening criminal act of a third person will insulate a defendant from...