Beasley v. Elder
| Decision Date | 16 June 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 34674,34674,2 |
| Citation | 88 Ga.App. 419,76 S.E.2d 849 |
| Parties | BEASLEY v. ELDER |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Estill Lee Beasley brought an action for damages against Roland J. Elder, Jr., a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, and effected service under the provisions of an act of 1937, Ga.L.1937,[88 Ga.App. 420] p. 732, Code Ann.Supp., § 68-801 et seq. The petition is in two counts and, as finally amended, the material allegations of those counts are as follows: Count 1: (2) On July 1, 1951, the defendant was the owner of a 1941 model DeSoto automobile, which he was driving from Spring Lake, Kentucky, to Savannah, Georgia, and he requested the plaintiff to ride with him as his guest. (3) The plaintiff was at an advanced age and was inexperienced in traveling in an automobile and was not familiar with the mechanics of automobiles or traffic regulations governing the operation of motor vehicles on public highways. (4) During the latter part of June, 1951, when the plaintiff and defendant set out on the trip from Spring Lake to Savannah, the defendant assured the plaintiff that the automobile was in good running condition. (5) The automobile performed properly at the beginning of the trip, but during the course of travel the motor and lights cut off and on from time to time, and at a point some 75 miles north of the point of the collision, the defendant attempted to remedy the cause of this trouble. (6) The defendant assured the plaintiff that he had remedied the trouble and that it would continue on its course without further defects. (7) The plaintiff relied on this representation, since he did not know enough about the automobile to investigate the facts of the statement. (8) During the late evening of June 30, 1951, at approximately 10:30 p. m., the automobile reached a point in Chatham County, near Bloomingdale, Georgia, on U. S. Highway 80, and the lights of the car went out. The defendant, showing conscious indifference to the reasonable consequences of his acts, stopped the car at a point on the highway about two feet south of the center line with all four wheels of the vehicle resting on the highway, and demanded that the plaintiff get out and push the car off the road. The defendant, showing a conscious indifference to the reasonable consequences, then applied the emergency brakes after the plaintiff got out of the car and made no effort to attempt to start the motor of the vehicle. (9) The plaintiff alighted from the car, and, acting in the emergency and in answer to the shouted instructions of the defendant, began to push the automobile, when a taxicab, approaching from the rear, ran into and struck the plaintiff, pinning him between the two automobiles and causing him serious injury. (10) The plaintiff has received $4,000 from the operator of the taxicab in consideration for a covenant not to sue and this amount should be deducted from, or serve in mitigation of, the amount of damages prayed in this petition. (11) By reason of the gross negligence of the defendant the plaintiff suffered enumerated injuries; and (12) incurred enumerated expenses. (13) The defendant was grossly and wantonly negligent in the following particulars, all of which proximately caused the injuries and damages complained of: (h) in inviting the plaintiff to go on the trip as his guest, when he knew his automobile was defective in that the lights on the car were likely to go out and place the plaintiff in a dangerous and perilous position without informing the plaintiff thereof, as the plaintiff did not know of this defect nor could he have discovered it in the exercise of ordinary care. (14) The injuries sustained by the plaintiff were without negligence on his part.
The allegations of Count 2 of the petition were identical with those of Count 1, save that to paragraph 9 the following subparagraph was added: (a) in attempting to push the automobile in answer to the shouted instructions of the defendant, the plaintiff was rendering a benefit which was directly...
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Freeman v. Martin
...or when one gets out of a car that has stopped on a busy highway at night and tries to push it, at the driver's request (Beasley v. Elder, 88 Ga.App. 419, 76 S.E.2d 749), or when he continues to drive the vehicle of another after discovering that the brakes do not function (Redding v. Morri......
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Southland Butane Gas Co. v. Blackwell
...want of that care which a man of common sense would take of himself, and is nothing short of gross negligence.' In Beasley v. Elder, 88 Ga.App. 419, 76 S.E.2d 849, 851, the Court of Appeals quoted and followed the ruling in Southern Railway Co. v. Hogan, 131 Ga. 157, 62 S.E. 64, that "One w......
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Stukes v. Trowell, 44179
...of being hit by another vehicle when, at the request of his host, a guest gets out and pushes a stalled car from behind, Beasley v. Elder, 88 Ga.App. 419, 76 S.E.2d 849; or of being thrown by a horse which he voluntarily rides in a parade, LaHoste v. Yaarab Mounted Patrol, Inc., 89 Ga.App. ......
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Palmer v. Stevens, 42265
...care and diligence for his own safety * * * cannot hold another liable for damages from injuries thus occasioned.' Beasley v. Elder, 88 Ga.App. 419(2), 76 S.E.2d 849; Southern R. Co. v. Hogan, 131 Ga. 157, 62 S.E. 64; Southland Butane Gas Co. v. Blackwell, 211 Ga. 665, 668, 88 S.E.2d 6, sup......