Frady v. Smith
| Decision Date | 16 December 1974 |
| Citation | 519 S.W.2d 584 |
| Parties | Mrs. Frances D. FRADY, Individually and as next friend and natural guardian of Jeffrey L. Parton, Petitioner, v. Guy H. SMITH and Virginia B. Smith, Respondents. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
L. Anderson Galyon, III, Lewis S. Howard, Kennerly, Montgomery, Howard & Finley, Knoxville, for petitioner.
John K. King, Morton, Lewis, King & Jones, Knoxville, for respondents.
This is a tort action arising out of an automobile-pedestrian accident which occurred on November 8, 1971, in the driveway on the campus of Northwest Junior High School in Knox County, Tennessee. Jeffrey L. Parton, then thirteen (13) years of age, was running from the school building across the driveway to a nearby school parking lot when he was struck by the automobile driven by respondent, Virginia B. Smith. The automobile involved in the accident was owned by respondent, Guy H. Smith and was the family automobile.
The petitioner Frances D. Frady, mother of Jeffrey filed an action against both Smiths to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by Jeffrey. Mrs. Frady also sought to recover expenses incurred by her in providing necessary medical treatment for her son and to recover damages for the loss of his services. The respondents denied the charges of negligence leveled at Mrs. Smith, and also plead contributory negligence, remote negligence, and sudden emergency doctrine.
On trial, the jury returned a verdict of $2,000.00 for Jeffrey Parton, and $5,000.00 for his mother. Judgment was entered accordingly. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment, sustained respondents' motion for a directed verdict, and dismissed the action. In doing so, the court stated:
'Under the record reasonable minds could not differ on the issue of the plaintiff's capacity to appreciate the danger involved; the plaintiff had the capacity to be guilty of contributory negligence.
This court granted the petition for certiorari filed by Mrs. Frady to review the action of the Court of Appeals.
Negligence, contributory negligence, and proximate cause are ordinarily issues to be decided by the jury, and can be withdrawn from the jury and decided by the court only in those cases where the facts are established by evidence free from conflict, and the inference from the facts is so certain that all reasonable men, in the exercise of a free and impartial judgment, must agree upon it. Spain v. Livingston, 59 Tenn.App. 346, 440 S.W.2d 805 (1968).
The opinion of the Court of Appeals contains a succinct and substantially accurate statement of facts in this case, from which we draw liberally as follows:
'The facts reveal the defendant Smith arrived on the school grounds just as school was letting out for the day. Mrs. Smith heard the school bell ringing, and she stated she knew children would be leaving the building instantly. This defendant testified she was driving along the school driveway in an area at the back of the school building at a speed of ten to fifteen miles per hour. There was an almost solid line of several automobiles parked on her right side of the drive, which is the side of the drive nearest the school building. As she was thus driving and maintaining a lookout ahead, she suddenly saw a boy in front of her automobile and at that instant her vehicle struck the boy. This defendant stated that she did not see the boy Jeffrey Parton until the instant her vehicle hit him. The defendant immediately applied brakes. She stated her car stopped within less than a car length after the impact, and she did not leave skid marks on the driveway. There was no speed limit posted on the school driveway, and there were no marked pedestrian walk or traffic controls of any type. The driveway is sixteen feet wide.
'The plaintiff Jeffery Parton stated he was in a hurry to get to a pick-up truck in a parking lot at the rear of the school building. He ran down the hall of the school building at a fast rate, out a door and straight on along a walk which lies along a side of the school building. The side of the school building was to the left of Jeffrey as he ran along the walk, and that building blocked his vision to his left until he cleared the corner of the building at a point where the walk upon which he was running intersected at right angles a sidewalk along the driveway. (As a matter of fact, the building does not extend to the sidewalk intersection but...
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