Gregory v. Schnurstein

• Decision Date: 10 July 1956
• Docket Number: No. 19396,19396
• Citation: 212 Ga. 497,93 S.E.2d 680
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: Marjorie GREGORY v. Robert SCHNURSTEIN.

Page 680

93 S.E.2d 680

212 Ga. 497

Marjorie GREGORY v. Robert SCHNURSTEIN.

No. 19396.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 10, 1956.

Syllabus by the Court.

A single wrongful or negligent act, which injures both one's person and his property, gives but a single cause of action, and a settlement of the property damages will, where pleaded, bar an action on account of injuries to the person, where both items of damages are the result of a single wrongful or negligent act.

Noah J. Stone, A. Mims Wilkinson, Jr., Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.

Dunaway & Embry, Atlanta, for defendant in error.

ALMAND, Justice.

The Court of Appeals has certified to the court for answer the following question:

'1. Where, as the result of a single tortious act committed by the defendant, the plaintiff suffers personal injury and also property damage to her automobile, and where thereafter the parties enter into a settlement agreement as to the amount of property damage only, will such a settlement thereafter bar the right of the plaintiff to maintain and prosecute an action at law for the recovery of damages for injury to her person, where the foregoing property settlement appears pleaded according to the record? James v. Emmco Insurance Co., 71 Ga.App. 196, at page 201, 30 S.E.2d 361; Southeastern Greyhound Lines v. Wells, 204 Ga. 814, 51 S.E.2d 569; Western & Atlantic Ry. Co. v. Atkins, 141 Ga. 743, 747, 82 S.E. 139; Bennett v. Dove, 93 Ga.App. 57(2), 90 S.E.2d 601; Giles v. Smith, 80 Ga.App. 540, 56 S.E.2d 860.'

In Western & Atlantic Ry. Co. v. Atkins, 141 Ga. 743, 82 S.E. 139, the plaintiff sought to recover damages of the defendant for a personal injury. The defendant pleaded a written release based on a valuable consideration as an accord and satisfaction. The plaintiff contended that the release was executed solely to cover the amount of property damages he had suffered at the time he also suffered personal injuries. This court held that the tort was a single one, and though several items of damages resulted from this tort, the plaintiff, having received compensation for some of the damages arising from the occurrence, the release, so long as it stood, operated as an accord and satisfaction and furnished a complete answer to the plaintiff's action for damages to his person. In Endsley v. Georgia Ry. & Power Co., 37 Ga.App. 439, 140 S.E. 386, it was held that, where one sustained injury to his person and also damages to his property from the same negligent act of another, two distinct causes of action arose in favor of the injured person, and a pecovery for damages to his property would not bar a subsequent action for the injury to his person. On certiorari to this court, 167 Ga. 439, 145 S.E. 851, 62 A.L.R. 256, this ruling was reversed, and the rule was laid down that, where injury to the person and to the physical property of the injured party grew out of a single wrongful or negligent act, the tort to the person and the property constituted a single cause of action, and the Atkins case, supra, was cited in support of the ruling. In the opinion, this court cited a long list of authorities from other states in the Union as enunciating the commonlaw rule which these states had followed, and the court discussed the minority rule following the English rule, which holds that two causes of action arise where a single tortious act injures both person and property. This court disagreed with the ruling of the Court of Appeals that the plaintiff in that case had two causes of action, but did not reverse that court, for the reason that it was held that the rule was for the benefit of the...