Cash v. Gates
| Decision Date | 06 February 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 3044,3044 |
| Citation | 151 So.2d 838 |
| Parties | Roger M. CASH, Appellant, v. Harriette A. GATES and Harley D. Gates, and Walter Adams and Behring Construction Company, a Florida Corporation, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Charles A. Nugent, Jr., of Miller, Cone, Owen, Wagner & Nugent, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
S. H. Adams of Jones, Adams, Paine & Foster, West Palm Beach, for appellees Adams and Behring Construction Company.
Appellant, plaintiff below in this wrongful death action, seeks review of a final judgment non obstante veredicto entered in favor of defendants, Adams and Behring Construction Company, following a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff-appellant against all four defendant-appellees. Walter Adams and Behring Construction Company are the only appellees participating in this appeal.
At about 11:00 A.M. on June 20, 1960, plaintiff's wife was riding in a 1960 Corvair automobile being driven by Defendant Harriette Gates in Pompano Beach, Florida. The weather was overcast or cloudy and the pavement apparently was wet.
The Corvair was traveling south on U. S. 1, a four-lane arterial highway, the north and south bound lanes of which are separated by islands, and was in the process of turning left into Northeast Sixth Street, a paved, two-lane street, when it was struck by a truck being driven by Defendant Adams and which was owned by Defendant Behring Construction Company.
The intersection was controlled by a traffic light which had turned green in favor of the truck when it was at least 40 or 50 feet south of it. Defendant-truckdriver, who was going 20 or 25 miles per hour, continued at that speed into the intersection when the light changed. He apparently did not decrease his speed as he approached the intersection and he testified that he first saw the Corvair when it was 3 or 4 feet from him, at which time he applied the truck's brakes. No obstacle or obstruction blocked the vision of either driver.
Complaint was filed against the four defendants, charging Defendant Harriette Gates with gross negligence and Defendant-truckdriver Adams with negligence. The cause came on to jury trial and a verdict of $30,000.00 in favor of plaintiff was returned against all four defendants. Defendants Adams and Behring Construction Company then moved for a new trial or for directed verdict on reserved ruling. The trial judge denied the motion for new trial, granted the motion for directed verdict, and, on December 6, 1960, entered judgment non obstante veredicto for Defendants Adams and Behring Construction Company. This appeal is from the latter order, so that in the present posture of the case, plaintiff is left with a $30,000.00 verdict against Defendants Gates.
At the outset we shall discuss some of the well established principles governing appellate review of the granting of a directed verdict after the entry of the jury's verdict, since both of the appellant's points assert error in this respect.
The party moving for a directed verdict admits not only the facts established by the evidence but also every conclusion favorable to the adverse party that a jury might reasonably infer from the evidence. It is frequent in negligence cases that the record contains evidence from which reasonable men often derive conflicting conclusions. In these cases then, unless the evidence as a whole, with all reasonable deductions to be drawn therefrom, points to one possible conclusion, the trial judge is not warranted in withdrawing the case from the jury or in setting aside the jury's determination on conflicting evidence and substituting therefor his own evaluation of the evidence. Alessi v. Farkas, Fla.App.1960, 118 So.2d 658; Nelson v. Ziegler, Fla.1956, 89 So.2d 780. In the instant case, however, we are of the opinion that the judge below correctly concluded that there was no evidence from which the jury could reasonably find or infer that the defendant, Walter Adams, was guilty of negligence which proximately caused or contributed to the accident in question.
Appellant contends that Defendant Adams violated a city ordinance of the City of...
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...admits all inferences of fact favorable to the adversary that reasonably might be drawn from the evidence as a whole'. Cash v. Gates, Fla.App., 1963, 151 So.2d 838; Love v. Adams, Fla.App., 1967, 194 So.2d Applying the foregoing principles to the case sub judice, and admitting we would so h......
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...inferences points to but one possible conclusion, the trial court is not warranted in withholding the case from the jury. Cash v. Gates, Fla.App.1963, 151 So.2d 838; Alessi v. Farkas, Fla.App.1960, 118 So.2d The defendants assert an appeal that (1) they clearly had no prior knowledge of any......
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