Georgia Southern & F. Ry. Co. v. Adeeb

• Decision Date: 16 February 1915
• Docket Number: 5584.
• Citation: 84 S.E. 323,15 Ga.App. 831
• Parties: GEORGIA S. & F. RY. CO. v. ADEEB ET AL.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

84 S.E. 323

15 Ga.App. 831

GEORGIA S. & F. RY. CO. v. ADEEB ET AL.

No. 5584.

Court of Appeals of Georgia

February 16, 1915

Syllabus by the Court.

The concept of a contract requires that the minds of the parties shall meet and accord at the same time, upon the same subject-matter, and in the same sense. The evidence in the present case authorized the jury to conclude that there was no contract between the alleged contracting parties.

Where accord and satisfaction as to the plaintiff's claim against the railway company, for damages on account of personal injuries, are embodied in an instrument signed by her, the purport of which she testifies she did not understand, because of her ignorance of the English language and her inability to read it, and because it was not read to her, and she denies that she entered into any contract whatever with the railway company, and, while admitting that at the time of the signing, money was paid to her, she asserts that she did not accept it on account of any contract, or in satisfaction, to any extent, of her claim against the railway company, and that she thought she was simply furnishing her name for the convenience or information of the company's agent who requested it, and that she did not understand why the money was given her, a return or tender of the money is not necessary before suit for the damages referred to in the alleged release.

The evidence authorized the verdict.

Error from City Court of Valdosta; J. G. Cranford, Judge.

Action by Mrs. Louise Adeeb against the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company and another. Judgment for plaintiff, and the defendant named brings error. Affirmed.

J. E Hall, of Macon, and E. K. Wilcox, of Valdosta, for plaintiff in error.

Whitaker & Dukes and Patterson & Copeland, all of Valdosta, and Bennet & Branch, of Quitman, for defendant in error.

WADE J.

Mrs Louise Adeeb brought her action for damages against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company as joint tort-feasors, alleging that, because of the concurrent negligence of both defendants, she had suffered various physical injuries resulting from a collision at a grade crossing in Valdosta, Ga., on January 15, 1912, between a train of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, on which she was a passenger, and a train of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company. Each defendant filed, in addition to a plea to the merits, a special plea, setting up that, prior to the bringing of the suit, the plaintiff had effected with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company a full and complete settlement for the alleged injuries, for a valuable consideration paid by that company and accepted by her, as an accord and satisfaction for all such injuries. The issue raised by the special pleas was submitted to a special jury and was determined in favor of the plaintiff. The trial then proceeded, and, at the close of the evidence for the plaintiff, the court granted a nonsuit as to the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company, and upon the completion of the entire testimony the jury returned a verdict for $600 against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Both the plaintiff and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company filed exceptions pendente lite to the order granting a nonsuit as to the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company. The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company made a motion for a new trial, on various grounds, and the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company also filed a motion for a new trial of the issue raised by its special plea of accord and satisfaction. Both motions for a new trial were overruled, and each defendant excepted to the refusal of the court to grant its particular motion, and brought its case here for review.

We now have before us only the question raised by the motion filed in behalf of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company. There are no assignments of error, except on the general grounds, and we are to determine solely if, under the rules of law controlling in such cases, the verdict in behalf of the plaintiff is supported by evidence, or was not authorized by the evidence, and therefore was contrary to law.

The defendant introduced in evidence a written release, dated January 15, 1912, signed by the plaintiff and witnessed by F. A. Bates and O. T. Hill, which recited that the plaintiff had a claim against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company for injury to her back and side, and for all injuries to her person of every kind and character, occurring at Valdosta, Ga., on the 15th day of January, 1912, under circumstances which she claimed rendered the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company liable (which liability was denied by the railroad company); and, whereas both parties desired to effect a compromise, the plaintiff acknowledged the receipt by her from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of the sum of $10, and, in consideration of the payment of this amount to her, she thereby acquitted, discharged, and released the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, its agents and employés, from any and all liability on account of such injuries or for any results therefrom, direct or indirect.

See Donaldson v. Carmichael, 102 Ga. 40, 29 S.E. 135.

F. A. Bates, the conductor in charge of the train of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, on which Mrs. Adeeb was riding when injured, and O. T. Hill, the special claim agent of that company, both testified that shortly after the collision they assisted the plaintiff to leave the passenger coach, and that at the time she was excited, and was crying, and said she was suffering pain; that she could speak English, but they "could tell she was a foreigner"; that they conducted her to a nearby hack and placed her therein, and Hill got into the hack with her; that after she was seated in the hack, and after the matter had been fully explained to her, and Hill had read over a printed form of release (except that no mention was made of the $10 consideration, which Bates produced), she signed her name thereto with full knowledge that the same was intended to be in full settlement of any and all damages she had suffered or might suffer on account of the said collision; that they both signed their names to the paper as witnesses, and Bates then handed to Mrs. Adeeb a $10 bill, the amount named in the release, which she accepted and placed in her bag or hand satchel, and which Bates testified he never afterwards saw, and which Hill said "she did not refuse to take when Bates offered it to her," and that Bates did not throw it into her lap, and he (Hill) did not pick it up from her lap. Bates said that the release was not filled out at the time it was signed, because he did not have pen and ink at the hack, but that he filled in the rest of the agreement after he returned to the station, and "did not put anything in there, except what she agreed to." The signature was made with a pencil; and Bates further said:

"I wrote in the written part of that paper at the station after she had signed it and after I came from the train. None of the writing on this paper was there when she left there, except her name. I did not see Hill any more for some time. I put my name down here after the paper was made out. Hill witnessed it at the time. Those names look very much like they were written with the same kind of ink and the same pen."

Hill testified that he accompanied the plaintiff to the home of a friend of hers in the city, and there left her.

Here the defendant rested, and the plaintiff testified, in broken English, that she was 30 years old, and came from Syria to America 8 years before; that she learned to speak the English language one or two years after she arrived here, but could not read English, though she could "write French, and English is the same write, * * * same sort of letters--different ways, that is all." The plaintiff said that on the morning the train was wrecked "the conductor first see me inside the car. I be in car hollering. The conductor, he told me, 'You hurt.' He said me hurt, and ask me what the matter with me. He said, 'Give me your name, please;' and I said, 'Louise Adeeb.' He said, 'How do you spell your last name?' I spell it for him. He told me to sign it down here, and 'I am going to help you get hack.' He make me sit down; make me get me hack. He go after hack. That is what he say. He come back 15, 20, or 30 minutes." Without attempting further to use the exact language of the witness, but giving her testimony in substance and as nearly as possible, she said further that the conductor, or Hill one of them, told her to sign the paper; that they took her to a hack, and then the conductor came to her and said, "Sign that paper," and she told him she could not sign, as she was suffering from the hurt, but he insisted, and she signed. She stated positively that the conductor did not tell her what he wanted her to sign the paper for; and that neither he nor Hill read it to her, and in fact Hill, who was standing near her, never spoke to her at all, and never mentioned the paper; that when she signed the paper she did not know what it was, but from the fact that the conductor, when he first tried to take her name on the train, said he could not "spell it good," she supposed he wanted her to write her name, and "thought he wanted to take my name to the doctor"; that she could not understand the paper if read to her, and that it was not read to her, and that she did not look at it at the time, as she was suffering, but the conductor urged her to sign it, and said he wanted it right away, and insisted, though she told him two or three times that she could not sign, because her "hand do like that" (indicating). She further testified that after she...