Brown & Root, Inc. v. Continental Southern Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 May 1956
• Docket Number: No. 40014,40014
• Citation: 228 Miss. 15,87 So.2d 257
• Parties: BROWN & ROOT, Inc., et al. v. CONTINENTAL SOUTHERN LINES, Inc., and M. T. Stewart et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 257

87 So.2d 257

228 Miss. 15

BROWN & ROOT, Inc., et al. v. CONTINENTAL SOUTHERN LINES, Inc., and M. T. Stewart et al.

No. 40014.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 7, 1956.

Suggestion of Error Overruled June 11, 1956.

See 87 So.2d 926.

Laub, Adams, Forman & Truly, Natchez, Watkins & Eager, Jackson, for appellants.

Brandon, Brandon, Hornsby & Handy, Natchez, Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, Jackson, for appellees.

ROBERDS, Presiding Justice.

This litigation grows out of a collision between a two-ton Ford truck and a passenger bus. The accident occurred on U. S. Highway 61 some two and a half miles northeast of the corporate limits of the City of Natchez between 6:30 and 7:00 o'clock on the morning of September 12, 1953. Highway 61 runs generally north and south, but at the place of the accident, and for some distance on either side thereof, it runs northeasterly and southwesterly. However, we will designate points as being north or south of the scene of the accident. Both vehicles were traveling north, and the bus was in the act of passing the truck when the collision heppened. The bus was being operated by Continental Southern Lines, Inc., and M. T. Stewart, servant of said Lines, Inc., was the driver thereof. The truck was being operated by Brown & Root, Inc., and Homer Nations, its employee, was driving it.

Brown & Root, Inc., initiated the litigation. In its declaration, filed against the Lines, Inc., and Stewart, the driver of the bus, it asserted, as grounds for liability on the part of the defendants, that the bus undertook to pass the truck without giving any notice, sign or warning of such intention, and negligently collided with the truck, knocking it from the road, and causing property damage to the truck in the amount of $1,675.37.

Both defendants answered the declaration and denied all negligence and liability on their part. Both made counter-claims against Brown & Root, Inc., asserting that Nations, the driver of the Ford truck, without signal or warning, turned abruptly and suddenly to the left and across the north lane of the highway, into the path of the bus, colliding therewith. The Lines, Inc., claimed property damage to the bus in the sum of $11,225.95, and Stewart first asked for damages against Brown & Root, Inc., for personal injuries in the sum of $20,000, which claim, by later amendment, was increased to $35,000, actual and punitive damages.

The jury awarded nothing to Brown & Root, Inc. It found for Stewart in the sum of $35,000 and for the Continental Southern Lines, Inc., property damage in the amount of $2,806.48. Judgments were entered accordingly. Brown & Root, Inc., appeal from both judgments. Continental Southern Lines, Inc., cross-appealed, contending that the verdict of the jury settled the question of liability but that the proof was undisputed as to the amount of actual damages suffered by it, and that we should either render judgment for the sum of $11,225.95 or remand the case to be again tried upon the issue alone of the extent of the damage suffered by cross-appellant.

We will first consider and pass upon the contentions of Brown & Root, Inc., and, lastly, dispose of the issue of damages involved in the cross-appeal.

Brown & Root, Inc., say the verdict of the jury, denying recovery by it and imposing liability at the instance of the two cross-claimants, as shown above, was against the great weight of the evidence and the case should be reversed and remanded for trial before another jury on the question of liability.

Homer Nations, driver of the truck, testified that he was 29 years of age, married, had been driving trucks and motor vehicles of various types for a number of years; that he had been employed by Brown & Root, Inc., for about four years; that on the morning of this accident he had been instructed by his employer to drive the Ford truck from the Company's office, located just north of the city limits of Natchez, to Jackson and bring back a piece of machinery and he was on his way to Jackson when the accident happened; that he was proceeding down a slight incline on Highway 61, which is a paved highway, and that he looked to his rear and saw the passenger bus as it came over a slight incline some 600 feet to his rear; that he was driving some 35 miles per hour; that he did not see the bus again until the collision took place; that his home was about 100 feet north of Highway 61 and that he had decided to go to his home and tell his wife where he was going; that he slowed his truck to about 5 to 8 miles per hour, gave a left turn signal and then proceeded to turn to the left to cross the north lane of the highway and go up the side road to his home; that he did not know the bus intended to pass him, or was in the act of passing him, until it struck the truck; that the bus horn blew about the time of the collision. He said, '* * * before he hit me he blowed his horn--electric horn. It was just before he hit the truck, almost at the same time.' He was asked, 'Q. Now, at the point where this collision occurred, how much of your truck was extending over the center line of the pavement to your right, to your best estimation? A. I would say three feet.' Again he said, 'I had already made by turn when he hit me. Yes, I had started my turn.' He said the bus hit the truck about a foot and a half behind the cab of the truck. He estimated the bus was running between 50 and 55 miles per hour. The truck overall was 19 feet long. From the front of the truck to the back of the cab was 8 feet. The truck had a cab and a flat body to the rear of the cab. No vehicle was approaching from the opposite direction. The road was straight and visibility good for 800 feet south to the top of the incline and for considerable distance north of the place of the accident. The testimony of this witness on the vital question as to whether he gave a proper signal that he was going to turn across the road might have been weakened some in the minds of the jurors by this incident: Some 200 feet to the south of the scene of the accident, and on the north side of the highway, is located Lewis' Filling Station. He said that as he passed that station he spoke to a boy standing at the station '* * * and I dropped my hand on down. I just spoke to him like that and dropped my hand on down.' It was for the jury to say whether that described a proper signal for a left turn across the north lane of the road.

Nations was the only eyewitness placed upon the stand by Brown & Root, Inc., except Stewart, who was called as an adverse witness, and who was later recalled by defendants and cross-claimants, and whose testimony we will discuss hereinafter.

Appellant introduced J. C. Smith. He was superintendent for Brown & Root, Inc., and he gave Nations the instructions to drive the truck to Jackson and return with the machinery part the day of the accident. He said Nations was a careful, qualified, competent driver of trucks; that this truck weighed between ten and eleven thousand pounds and was 8 feet wide. He identified a number of photographs of the two vehicles after the wreck and of the scene of the accident. It might be here stated that the truck went off the pavement in a northeasterly direction and stopped 118 feet from the scene of the contact between the two vehicles and the bus went off the pavement in a northwesterly direction and landed in a ravine 140 feet from that point.

Appellant introduced Mr. Chandler Jordan, a civil engineer. From information given him and that gathered from his own inspection he had made some plats of the immediate and surrounding area about the scene, showing the respective physical locations of houses along the highway, and the highway itself, and the spots where the vehicles came to rest after the accident. One plat showed two white posts standing at the entrance to the side road leading to the home of Nations. These posts were 40 feet north of highway 61. The points and objects depicted upon the plats were also shown on photographs which were introduced on the trial.

Mr. M. T. Stewart, a defendant in the declaration and a counter-claimant, was called as an adverse witness and then took the stand in his own behalf. Condensing his testimony, he said he was the driver of the bus. He had a wife and three children. He was 33 years of age. He had been driving a passenger bus for Continental Southern Lines, Inc., for six years; he had driven five years over this same route; he was driving the bus the day of the accident; the bus was 35 feet long, 8 feet wide and 10 feet high. It had air brakes. They were in good condition; that he left the bus station at Natchez at 6:30 that morning; that he was going to Jackson, Miss., by way of Vicksburg; in going to Vicksburg he was traveling U. S. Highway 61; that as he went over the crest of a slight incline he saw the Ford truck ahead of him descending on the east side of this elevation that the truck was then about 250 to 300 feet from his bus, both vehicles traveling in the same direction; he estimated the crest of the incline to be some 900 feet south of the point of the accident; that as he came over the crest he was running about 30 miles an hour, being within a 40-mile speed zone; that the truck was running some 20 to 25 miles an hour; that he reduced his speed to about 25 miles per hour; that later the truck again reduced its speed and he prepared to pass it. He looked ahead and to the rear to be sure no other vehicles were approaching from either direction, and there being none, he blew his horn as a signal to the truck driver that the bus was about to pass; that he increased his speed, turned into the left, or north, lane, and as he approached the truck he gave another signal that he was passing; that suddenly the truck truned across the road to the left into the north, or left, lane, causing the collision between the two vehicles. He testified that the driver of the truck gave no signal...