Grooms v. Minute-Maid, 7815.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1959
• Docket Number: No. 7815.,7815.
• Parties: Marion R. GROOMS, Appellant, v. MINUTE-MAID, a corporation, and Rex Jones, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

267 F.2d 541 (1959)

Marion R. GROOMS, Appellant, v. MINUTE-MAID, a corporation, and Rex Jones, Appellees.

No. 7815.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 20, 1959.

Decided June 8, 1959.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

William E. Chandler, Jr., Columbia, S. C., and Clyde C. Dean, Orangeburg, S. C., for appellant.

Charlton B. Horger, Orangeburg, S. C., and L. Marion Gressette, St. Mathews, S. C. (Louis Rosen, and Rosen & Horger, Orangeburg, S. C., on brief), for appellees.

Before HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judge, and BOREMAN and STANLEY, District Judges.

STANLEY, District Judge.

The plaintiff, Marion R. Grooms, instituted this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, against the defendants, Minute-Maid, Inc., and Rex Jones, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in a motor vehicle collision. Federal jurisdiction is based upon diversity of citizenship. After the plaintiff rested his case, which was being tried to a jury, the defendants moved for a directed verdict. The defendants' motion was granted and judgment was entered dismissing the action. This appeal followed.

The principal contention made by the plaintiff is that the district judge erred in not submitting the issue of defendants' negligence to the jury. In considering this question, we must bear in mind that cases should be submitted to the jury, the recognized trier of fact, unless the evidence is of such a character that reasonable men in impartial exercise of judgment might not reach different conclusions. On a motion for a directed verdict we must accept as true all the facts favorable to the plaintiff which the evidence tends to prove and draw all reasonable inferences against the defendants. Bowling v. Lewis, 4 Cir., 1958, 261 F.2d 311. The evidence, and all reasonable inferences arising therefrom, must be considered as a whole and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. If more than one reasonable inference can be drawn from the evidence, the case should be submitted to the jury. See Scott v. Meek, 1956, 230 S.C. 310, 95 S.E.2d 619, and the cases therein cited.

"It is the jury, not the court, which is the fact-finding body. It weighs the contradictory evidence and inferences, judges the credibility of witnesses, receives expert instructions, and draws the ultimate conclusion as to the facts. The very essence of its function is to select from among conflicting inferences and conclusions that which it considers most reasonable. * * * That conclusion, whether it relates to negligence, causation or any other factual matter, cannot be ignored." Tennant v. Peoria & P. U. Ry. Co., 1944, 321 U.S. 29, 64 S.Ct. 409, 412, 88 L.Ed. 520. Also see Pierce v. Ford Motor Co., 4 Cir., 1951, 190 F.2d 910, and Doggett v. Atlantic Holding Corp., 4 Cir., 1956, 239 F. 2d 156.

Considering the evidence in light of the foregoing legal principles, it appears that about 1:15 o'clock on the afternoon of May 25, 1957, the defendant, Rex Jones, was operating a tractortrailer type truck for the defendant, Minute-Maid, Inc., of Orlando, Florida, in a southerly direction on U. S. Highway 301 approximately three miles south of Orangeburg, South Carolina. The highway is a much traveled route with one lane of traffic for each direction of travel.

As the Minute-Maid truck came over the crest of a hill, there came into the view of its driver, approaching from the opposite direction, a Ford automobile, in which the plaintiff was a passenger, and a tractor-trailer type truck owned by L. G. DeWitt Company and being operated by one James C. Henry. Just prior to the time the Minute-Maid truck came into view, the driver of the DeWitt truck, then approximately 1,700 feet south of the crest of the hill, had pulled to his left for the purpose of passing the Ford automobile, which was traveling in the same direction and ahead of his truck. When the Minute-Maid truck came over the crest of the hill, the driver of the DeWitt truck, then in his left lane of travel and with the front of his cab about midway past the Ford automobile, observed that the Minute-Maid truck was being driven "terrifically fast." He saw that it was traveling too fast for him to safely get his truck around the Ford automobile, thus making it necessary for him to slacken his speed and get back behind the Ford. In undertaking to get back onto his right side of the highway, the DeWitt truck struck the Ford at about the right rear fender and tail light, causing it to go out of control and move into the south-bound lane of the highway. The Ford automobile, then out of control, continued to move north in the south-bound lane of the highway while the Minute-Maid truck continued to travel south toward the Ford automobile. The Minute-Maid truck and the Ford automobile collided with such force as to practically demolish the Ford. The point of impact between the two vehicles was in the defendants' right lane of travel and approximately 1,100 feet south of the crest of the hill and 600 feet north of the place where the driver of the DeWitt truck had started to pass the Ford automobile.

The Ford automobile, after being knocked out of control by the DeWitt truck, traveled up the highway a distance of 200 or more feet before coming into contact with the Minute-Maid truck. The Minute-Maid truck left 75 feet of light abrasion marks and an additional 100 feet of heavy skid marks prior to the point of impact. The driver of the Minute-Maid truck saw the Ford automobile coming across the road toward him immediately after the DeWitt truck had struck the Ford. In traveling the distance between the two vehicles, the driver of the Minute-Maid truck kept same "right in the path of travel where it normally would be," and made no attempt to drive onto the shoulder of the highway.

The collision occurred on a "sunshiny" day. Visibility was good and the driver of the Minute-Maid truck had a clear, unobstructed view of the highway from the crest of the hill south for a distance of approximately 1,800 feet to where the DeWitt truck was in the process of passing the Ford automobile.

The maximum speed limit on U. S. Highway 301 in this area, if no special hazard existed, was 55 miles per hour. There was evidence from which the jury could reasonably find that the Minute-Maid truck was traveling at least 70 miles per hour as it came over the crest of the hill and traveled down the slight decline to the point of the collision. The Minute-Maid truck was equipped with a Tachograph which was designed to record the speed of a vehicle up to 70 miles per hour. There was evidence that this device showed the Minute-Maid truck was traveling at the full recordable speed of 70 miles per hour before the collision. There was other evidence indicating that the Ford automobile was traveling between 40 and 45 miles per hour and that the Minute-Maid truck was traveling about twice that speed. Further, a reasonable inference could be drawn from the physical evidence that the Minute-Maid truck was traveling at an excessive rate of speed. From the time the Minute-Maid truck...