Griffin v. Harkey, 45050

• Decision Date: 25 November 1968
• Docket Number: No. 45050,45050
• Citation: 215 So.2d 866
• Parties: Dolphus GRIFFIN et al. v. Sandra HARKEY, a Minor, and Jesse Harkey, Husband and Next Friend.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 866

215 So.2d 866

Dolphus GRIFFIN et al. v. Sandra HARKEY, a Minor, and Jesse Harkey, Husband and Next Friend.

No. 45050.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 25, 1968.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 16, 1968.

Marby R. Penton, Pascagoula, for appellants.

Megehee & Brown, Pascagoula, for appellees.

ROBERTSON, Justice.

This suit was brought by Dolphus Griffin on behalf of himself; his wife, Erlyne Griffin; and their two minor sons under the wrongful death statute against Sandra Harkey, a minor, and Jesse Harkey, her husband and next friend, in the Circuit Court of Jackson County for damages for the death of Elizabeth Rose Griffin, the seven-year-old daughter of the Griffins, which resulted from an automobile collision.

When the plaintiff rested his case, defendant moved for a directed verdict, and the trial judge sustained this motion. The appellant assigns as error the action of the trial judge in directing a verdict for the appellees.

About 7 A.M. on October 13, 1966, the appellant, Erlyne Griffin, was driving her Chevy II station wagon south on Martin Bluff Road toward its intersection with U.S. Highway 90. Her minor son and daughter were on the backseat. There were two stop signs on the right side of Martin Bluff Road, one at its intersection with Highway 90, and the other about fifteen feet north of the intersection. Highway 90 at this point is a four-lane concrete highway running east and west with a median strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes. The posted speed limit on Highway 90 was 65 miles per hour. Mrs. Griffin testified that as she proceeded south and approached the first stop sign on Martin Bluff Road she shifted to second gear and applied her brakes. Martin Bluff Road is a paved asphalt road and was wet from an earlier rain. She stated that her brakes locked but her wheels skidded on some loose slag and her car went past the second stop sign and into the intersection of Martin Bluff Road and Highway 90. According to Mrs. Griffin, she noticed the car of the appellee, Sandra Harkey, when she, Mrs. Griffin, applied her brakes at the first stop sign. She stated that the Harkey car was about 1500 feet east on Highway 90 and that as her car skidded into the intersection that the Harkey car was about 800 feet east of the intersection.

As the front end of the Griffin station wegon reached the passageway through the median strip, the Harkey automobile, traveling west on the inside lane of Highway 90, collided with the left rear of the station wagon. The impact caused the minor daughter of the Griffins to be thrown out of the station wagon.

There were only three eyewitnesses to the accident: Sandra Harkey, the driver of the 1966 Chevrolet Impala; Mrs. Erlyne Griffin, the driver of the Chevy II station wagon; and Walter L. McVeay, IV, who was standing in Earl Bond's parking lot on the south side of U.S. Highway 90 at its intersection with Martin Bluff Road.

McVear, called as a witness by the plaintiff-appellant, testified:

'I was waiting on my ride and I looked up Martin Bluff Road and there was a car coming down the road, and I looked away, and when it got about forty feet from the highway, I looked back up and it come out and it slowed down and it cut its speed and it slowed down and come up on the highway, and when it got approximately in the middle of the highway, I saw a car coming from the east. It was about thirty feet from the car crossing the highway. And when they were about five feet apart, I saw they were going to hit and I put my head down and said, 'Oh, my God!"

McVeay was asked what Sandra Harkey could have done to have avoided the accident, and he answered, 'From the time I saw her, nothing.'

The appellant charged in his amended declaration that Appellee Sandra Harkey was driving her vehicle at an unsafe and reckless rate of speed under the conditions then prevailing, that she failed to decrease her speed as she approached the intersection, that s...