Gatewood v. Vaughn, 34176

• Decision Date: 26 September 1952
• Docket Number: No. 34176,No. 1,34176,1
• Citation: 72 S.E.2d 728,86 Ga.App. 823
• Parties: GATEWOOD et al. v. VAUGHN
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 728

72 S.E.2d 728

86 Ga.App. 823

GATEWOOD et al. v. VAUGHN.

No. 34176.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

Sept. 26, 1952.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The portion of the charge complained of, with regard to the care required of a person threatened with imminent danger or in an emergency, was not unsound as an abstract principle of law.

2. The jury was authorized to find that the plaintiffs' employee entered an intersection without stopping at a stop sign and while looking away from the defendant's automobile, which he had observed to be approaching the intersection, and in so doing negligently created a danger of collision with the defendant's automobile, which was the proximate cause of the damage sustained by the defendant in the resulting collision. The trial judge properly refused to grant a new trial.

A. D. Gatewood Jr. and A. D. Gatewood III, doing business as Premier Dry Cleaners, brought an action for damages to their truck against Julia Irene Vaughn, and she filed an answer and cross-action for damages to her automobile and for personal injuries arising out of the same collision. It was admitted in the pleadings that O. A. Adams, an employee of the plaintiffs, acting within the scope of his employment, was driving the plaintiffs' truck west on Lamar Street in the City of Americus on April 12, 1951. According to the allegations of the petition, which were denied by the defendant, Adams brought the truck to a full stop at the point where Lamar Street runs into Forsyth Street; and, observing no vehicles on Forsyth Street, he proceeded onto that street. As he reached the north side of Forsyth Street and was proceeding west, he saw Mrs. Vaughn approaching in her car on Forsyth Street, traveling east at a speed of 45 miles per hour. As she came into the intersection, her car crossed the center line of Forsyth Street to the north side thereof and collided with the plaintiffs' truck, thereby damaging it. It was further alleged that the defendant was negligent in driving at an excessive rate of speed in violation of the laws of the City of Americus; in driving across the center line and on the wrong side of the street, and in failing to keep a lookout for other vehicles upon the highways of the city.

The defendant alleged in her cross-action that there was a stop sign on Lamar Street at its intersection with Forsyth Street, placed there by the State Highway Department; that the defendant was driving at 15 miles per hour on her right side of Forsyth Street as she approached its intersection with Lamar Street, when Adams, driving the plaintiffs' truck, ran by the stop sign on Lamar Street without stopping and into Forsyth Street; that, when the defendant saw that the truck was going to run into her car, she blew her horn, applied brakes and turned to the left to try to keep the plaintiffs' truck from running into her car, but that the right front of the plaintiffs' truck hit the right front of her car, knocking it to the left side of Forsyth Street. The plaintiffs' employee, Adams, was alleged to have been negligent in driving at an excessive speed in violation of the laws of the City of Americus; in failing to stop at a stop sign in violation of Code § 68-315; in failing to keep a lookout for other vehicles upon the highways of the city, and in driving without looking where he was going.

On the trial of the case, the jury found in favor of the defendant for the damages to her automobile, and the evidence tending to support their verdict brought out the following facts: Forsyth Street, as one proceeds on it from the west into Americus, crosses an overpass and then curves to the left and north as State Highway 49; Lamar Street branches off to the right at this point and curves to the south as State Highway 280. The intersection appears as a fork in the road to drivers approaching from the west. Both streets are 40 feet wide. There was no stop sign for traffic moving into the intersection on Forsyth Street from the west, but there was a stop sign, erected by the State Highway Department, on Lamar Street, to stop vehicles approaching the intersection from the east on Lamar Street, as was the plaintiffs' truck at the time in question. The evidence of the plaintiffs' witnesses was to the effect that Adams stopped before reaching the sign, saw the defendant's car approaching on the overpass from the west on Forsyth Street, and then moved out into Forsyth Street so that he could look for cars approaching the intersection from the east on Forsyth Street, his view in that direction, to his right rear, being obscured by cars parked between Lamar and Forsyth Streets. The defendant's evidence was to the effect that Adams slowed down but did not come to a complete stop before entering the intersection. The defendant saw the plaintiffs' truck as she crossed the overpass; she slowed her car to 18 or 20 miles per hour, and, believing that Adams was going to stop, she continued on the right side of Forsyth Street. When she saw that Adams was looking back to his right rear and was coming into the intersection at 20 or 25 miles per hour, she blew her horn, and just as he looked around the truck...