Dawson Chevrolet Co. v. Ford
| Decision Date | 04 August 1933 |
| Docket Number | 22573. |
| Citation | 170 S.E. 306,47 Ga.App. 312 |
| Parties | DAWSON CHEVROLET CO. v. FORD. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where servant deviates from master's business, however short a time, to do entirely disconnected act, master is not liable for injury resulting to another therefrom (Civ. Code 1910, § 4413).
Where employee, after getting ice for employer in automobile other than one he was authorized to use for that purpose, proceeded in opposite direction from employer's place of business instead of carrying ice immediately thereto, on private enterprise, employer held not liable for employee's negligent driving during deviation (Civ. Code 1910, § 4413).
"If a servant steps aside from his master's business, for however short a time, to do an act entirely disconnected from it, and injury results to another from such independent voluntary act, the servant may be liable, but the master is not liable."
Error from Superior Court, Terrell County; C. W. Worrill, Judge.
Suit by J. W. Ford against the Dawson Chevrolet Company. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and defendant brings error.
Reversed.
Pottle Farkas & Cobb, of Albany, for plaintiff in error.
Henry A. Wilkinson, Jr., and H. A. Wilkinson, both of Dawson, for defendant in error.
J. W Ford brought an action against Dawson Chevrolet Company to recover damages caused by defendant's servant, Joe Davis, negligently driving its Chevrolet touring car into the rear of plaintiff's wagon. The court, trying the case without the intervention of a jury, rendered a judgment against the defendant for $241.20, and costs. The determining question in the case is whether or not the defendant was responsible for the act of its servant in driving the automobile into the wagon.
The gist of Joe Davis' testimony, in so far as it is pertinent to the issue presented, is that it was his duty as an employee of Dawson Chevrolet Company to get ice every morning from the Atlantic Ice & Coal Company and return with it immediately to his employer's place of business; that on the occasion in question he got the ice and proceeded with it in the automobile he was driving in the opposite direction from his employer's place of business, and ran into plaintiff's wagon "just beyond the Elladale Estate, about a mile and a quarter from town *** in the opposite direction from the ice company's plant relative to the Dawson Chevrolet Company's place of business"; that he "was not down there on any business for the Dawson Chevrolet Company, *** was just out there riding for my own pleasure," at "about thirty miles an hour"; and that, if he "had followed the instructions about getting the ice and returning immediately with it, the accident would not have happened."
Henry Grant testified that he was shop foreman for Dawson Chevrolet Company, and Joe Davis worked for said company under witness' supervision and orders; that witness "gave him ice-tickets and told him to go for ice every morning"; that Davis "did not have authority to drive the automobile with which he ran into the team at all," but had "instructions to use a service-truck," and to use it "only for the purpose of going to the ice plant to obtain the ice and return immediately"; that Davis "had no business for the Dawson Chevrolet Company on the Sasser Road that morning where the accident occurred"; that said place "was in the opposite direction from the Dawson Chevrolet Company with respect to the Atlantic Ice & Coal Company"; and that "one is on the north side of Dawson and the other is on the southeast side of Dawson."
In order to make the defendant liable in this...
To continue reading
Request your trial