Bennett v. Hardwell, 38334
| Decision Date | 19 May 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 38334,38334 |
| Parties | BENNETT et al. v. HARDWELL et al. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Hugh N. Clayton, New Albany, for appellants.
Barnett, Jones & Montgomery, Jackson, for appellees.
This suit grows out of an automobile collision. Bennett, the complainant, 20 years of age, and four other young men about the same age, were traveling south on U. S. Highway 51 in a Chevrolet automobile. Hickey was driving. Defendant, Tom J. Hardwell, and certain members of his family, were traveling north in a Lincoln automobile on the same highway. Hardwell was driving. There was a collision between the two cars about eight miles south of Pickens, Mississippi. The highway at that point is straight and runs north and south. Complainant suffered severe personal injuries, necessitating an expenditure of some six hundred dollars for ambulance, doctor and hospital bills. These injuries and expenses, according to the contention of complainant, resulted from the negligence of Hardwell in driving at an excessive rate of speed and on the wrong (west) side of the center line of the road. Hardwell denied these allegations and said the wreck was the result of the negligence of the driver of the Chevrolet car in being on the east side of the center line. The chancellor decided the question in favor of Hardwell and dismissed the bill. Complainant appeals. He urges on the appeal that the decision of the chancellor was against the great weight of the evidence and the cause should be reversed and remanded for new trial on that issue. We do not decide that question because we are reversing and remanding the cause on another ground, which will naturally result in that issue being again reconsidered and decided.
The cause is in chancery because Hardwell, who is a resident citizen of Louisiana, had conveyed to his seven year old stepson, six days after the accident, forty acres of land located in Hinds County, Mississippi, and one object of the proceeding is to set aside that deed.
The chancellor excluded certain testimony given by J. W. Bee and Miss Marilyn Perkins. This testimony related to the speed at which, and the reckless manner in which, Hardwell was driving his car a short distance from, and a few moments before, the accident. Bee, a resident of Brookhaven, Mississippi, with certain members of his family and Miss Perkins, were traveling north on Highway 51 in a Buick automobile. Bee was driving and Miss Perkins was riding on the back seat of the car. Bee said that some four or five miles south of the scene of the accident he noticed through his rear-view mirror the Lincoln car (being driven by Hardwell, it later developed), trying to pass him; that it would pull into the left lane and then be forced to re-enter the right, or east, lane by oncoming traffic; that finally Hardwell did pass him; that the passing car was running very fast; that he, Bee, looked at his own speedometer which then showed his speed to be 72 miles per hour, that he continued to watch the Hardwell car as it traveled north; that Hardwell swerved into the west lane and passed other cars, one going up a hill, and it was being driven in this manner until the accident occurred some two-fifths of a mile ahead of him. This was the part of Bee's evidence the court excluded. It admitted his testimony that he quickly arrived at the scene, had the ambulance called and that the skid marks indicated that Hardwell was on the wrong side of the road.
Miss Perkins testified, in substance, as did Bee as to the speed of the Hardwell car and the reckless manner in which it was being driven before, when and after it passed the Bee car. This was some four or five minutes before the accident. The chancellor excluded that testimony.
The excluded testimony was competent under the circumstances of this case. It pictured the manner in which Hardwell was driving just prior to and a short distance from the scene of the accident, and the proof is he continued to drive in the same manner until the accident occurred. This was not proof of negligence disconnected in...
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