Hanks v. Georgia Power Co.

Decision Date16 July 1952
Docket NumberNo. 34093,No. 1,34093,1
Citation72 S.E.2d 198,86 Ga.App. 654
PartiesHANKS v. GEORGIA POWER CO. et al
CourtGeorgia Court of Appeals

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The allegations of the petition show that the defendant was not operating its bus, on which the plaintiff was riding to go home from school, primarily and exclusively at the time in question for the purpose of transporting school children from school, but was carrying school children only incidentally to its duty of carrying members of the public, as a common carrier for hire, operating its bus on a schedule and along an established route; and therefore the defendant was not required to have its bus marked 'School Bus,' under the provisions of Code, § 68-311.

2. The petition further shows that the defendant discharged its duty to the plaintiff by carrying her to its regular stopping place which was nearest the plaintiff's home, where the bus stopped on the right-hand side of the street, some three feet from the curb, thirty feet beyond the sign marking the regular bus stop, and ten feet before reaching the curb line of an intersecting street, this being a safe place; and the defendant's driver was not bound to foresee that the plaintiff would pass around the but in such a period of time as to be in the path of a truck traveling in the opposite direction on the same street at an alleged speed of fifty-five miles per hour.

3. The petition failed to set out a cause of action against the defendant power company, and the court did not err in sustaining its demurrers thereto and in dismissing the action as to that company.

Marcia Joanne Hanks, by her father, William U. Hanks, as next friend, brought suit against Georgia Power Company and others for damages for personal injuries, and in her amended petition alleged substantially the following with regard to the liability of the defendant power company: Georgia Power Company was, on November 14, 1949, operating lines of electric and motor busses on the streets of Atlanta, in Fulton County, as a common carrier of passengers for hire, and on said date was operating a motor bus on its Virginia-McLynn line, as a carrier of passengers for hire. The Virginia-McLynn bus line runs along Virginia Avenue, past the Samuel Inman School, and on an established route into the main business section of Atlanta, a part of the route being along Argonne Avenue, in a southerly direction from Eighth Street to the place where Fifth Street runs into Argonne Avenue from the west. The nearest bus stop to the home of the plaintiff, when she was traveling home from said school, is on the west side of Argonne Avenue, about 30 feet north of the northwest corner of Argonne Avenue and Fifth Street. Business establishments are on the east side of Argonne Avenue at this point. The plaintiff was six years of age and attending the kindergarten at said public school; and at noon on said date, in the company of other children of the school, she boarded the Virginia-McLynn bus of the power company to be transported to the bus stop nearest her home, having paid her fare as a school-child passenger on said bus. The bus stopped on the right side of Argonne Avenue, about three feet from the curb, 10 feet before reaching the curb line of Fifth Avenue and 30 feet south of the sign marking the regular bus stop. When said bus stopped at said stop, the plaintiff, in company with Robert B. Bowen, Jr., also a pupil of Samuel Inman Kindergarten, was at the rear door for the purpose of alighting from said bus and crossing from the west side of Argonne Avenue to the east side, a fact well known to the operator of said bus. As the bus stopped, a laundry truck driven by the defendant Woodrow H. Mitchem, who was an employee of Bet-R-Way Cleaners and Laundry, Inc., also a defendant, approached from the south on Argonne Avenue, traveling on the west (driver's left) side of the center line at 55 miles per hour. With vehicles parked on either side of the street, there was only room for one car to pass at the bus stop. Before the rear door was opened and before the plaintiff was invited to alight, the operator of the bus saw, or by the exercise of ordinary care should have seen, the laundry truck approaching; but the operator opened the rear door for the children, did not warn them of the approaching truck, and allowed them to get off. The operator opened the front and rear doors of the bus, and passengers entered at the front of the bus. The operator made change for at least one passenger; and, while he was doing this, the plaintiff and young Bowen got off the bus. Although the operator of the bus knew that the children were ready to get off, he did not warn the plaintiff not to get off or that the laundry truck was approaching. Under the circumstances, the place where the bus stopped was an unsafe place for the plaintiff, a six-year-old child, to get off the bus. The plaintiff left the bus, started across Argonne Avenue, was hit by the left front of the laundry truck driven by Mitchem on the west side of the center line of the street, and was knocked 25 feet down Argonne Avenue, thereby sustaining severe injuries. Georgia Power Company had been operating motor vehicles used in transporting school children to and from school daily and regularly when the schools were open, transporting a large number of the school children of Atlanta. The bus on which the plaintiff was riding was so engaged, and on said date was transporting and carrying a number of school children as passengers from Samuel Inman School to their homes. The bus on which the plaintiff was riding was not distinctly marked 'School Bus' on both front, rear, and sides, in letters of not less than five inches in length, and so plainly written or printed and so arranged as to be legible to persons approaching said bus, and did not have 'School Bus' written or printed anywhere upon it in any size. Georgia Power Company, in order to induce school children to ride on its busses, offered a reduced rate to attract school children as passengers, and the plaintiff at the time in question was riding at such reduced rate. In order to accommodate school children being transported, the power company operated and scheduled extra busses and maintained the operation of busses that would ordinarily have been taken off, and the bus on which the plaintiff was riding was such a bus.

It was alleged that Georgia Power Company was negligent in the following respects:

(a) In failing to mark the bus 'School Bus' on the front, rear, and sides thereof, in letters five inches in length, so plainly written or printed and so arranged as to be legible to persons approaching from the front of said bus.

(b) In failing to mark the bus in any way whatsoever so as to advise...

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5 cases
  • Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Reading, 954
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • 1 Septiembre 1995
    ...Harris v. DeFelice, 379 Pa. 469, 109 A.2d 174 (1954); Odom v. Willms, 177 Neb. 699, 131 N.W.2d 140 (1964); Hanks v. Georgia Power Co., 86 Ga.App. 654, 72 S.E.2d 198 (1952); Smuzynski v. East St. Louis R. Co., 230 Mo.App. 1095, 93 S.W.2d. 1058 (1936). See also 13 C.J.S. Carriers, § 543 at 49......
  • Doss v. Miller
    • United States
    • Georgia Court of Appeals
    • 21 Octubre 1952
    ...Ga.App. 353, 180 S.E. 523. This was not a regular school bus, such as dealt with in the Sheffield case. The case of Hanks v. Georgia Power Co., 86 Ga.App. 654, 72 S.E.2d 198, is not authority that Mrs. Arthur Doss had, by permitting the plaintiff to alight from the automobile, discharged he......
  • Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority v. Tuck
    • United States
    • Georgia Court of Appeals
    • 29 Junio 1982
    ...on December 1, 1978, was not a "school bus." MARTA relies upon former Code Ann. § 68-311 as construed in Hanks v. Georgia Power Co., 86 Ga.App. 654, 656-657, 72 S.E.2d 198 (1952): "We think that this act was intended to apply to busses primarily and exclusively used for [transporting school......
  • Whitley Const. Co. v. Price, 34708
    • United States
    • Georgia Court of Appeals
    • 1 Diciembre 1953
    ...as the trackless trolley in this case is not a school bus within the meaning of that section of the Code, Hanks v. Georgia Power Co., 86 Ga.App. 654, 657, 72 S.E.2d 198, that subparagraph was stricken by amendment and especially excluded from the jury's consideration by the charge, and the ......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

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