Jacobs v. Harlem Cab, Inc., 65-535
| Decision Date | 01 March 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 65-535,65-535 |
| Citation | 183 So.2d 552 |
| Parties | Henry JACOBS, Appellant, v. HARLEM CAB, INC., a Florida corporation, and Clarence William Small, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Henry C. Vogel and Thomas A. Horkan, Jr., Miami, for appellant.
Kastenbaum, Mamber, Gopman, Epstein & Miles, Miami Beach, for appellees.
Before TILLMAN PEARSON, CARROLL and BARKDULL, JJ.
The appellant Henry Jacobs sued the owner and the driver of a taxi cab in which he was a passenger, for personal injuries received when he fell or was thrown through a rear door of the taxi cab onto the street.
On trial of the cause before a jury, motions of defendants for directed verdict were denied, a verdict was rendered in favor of the plaintiff for $6,500 and judgment was entered thereon. Thereafter defendants' motion under rule 2.7(b), Fla.R.C.P., 31 F.S.A. to set aside the judgment and for judgment to be entered in favor of defendants in accordance with their motion for directed verdict, was granted, judgment was entered for defendants (see rule 2.7(c), Fla.R .C.P.), and the plaintiff appealed.
In the order granting judgment for defendants the trial judge held that a prima facie case of negligence was not shown, and that it was as reasonable to infer the defendant driver may have turned sharply to avoid a child as to assume it was an act of negligence. 1 In our opinion the trial judge was in error in so holding, and we reverse.
The facts leading up to the accident, as disclosed by the record, were that the plaintiff, who was under the influence of liquor to some degree, and who had arranged to meet a woman at a certain street location, placed a call for the taxi cab operated by the defendant William Small with whom he was acquainted. In response to the call Small picked up the plaintiff and drove him to the desired location. There was a direct conflict in the evidence as to which side of the cab the plaintiff entered and on which side of the rear seat he sat. Plaintiff testified he entered the cab on the right side, and was on that side at the time of the accident in which he fell or was thrown through the left rear door. The defendant driver testified the plaintiff entered the cab, without any assistance, on the left side and was seated on the left. He also testified that before the accident the plaintiff was observed leaning against the left door with his right arm. The plaintiff testified otherwise. The defendant driver explained that the vehicle, a Checker cab, was wider and roomier in the rear seat compartment than the average automobile, having folding jump seats to accommodate additional passengers, and that the jump seats were folded down.
When the cab reached the place for the intended rendezvous, the party to be met was not there. At plaintiff's direction the taxi proceeded around the block, and when the expected party still had not appeared made a second circle of the block. It was in the course of rounding a corner on the latter that the plaintiff fell or was thrown out of the cab.
Plaintiff testified the cab driver was aggravated and made a sharp or quick turn which threw him from the right side of the rear seat shoulder first into the left door (which the driver testified he had locked), through the door and onto the street, rendering him unconscious and causing his injuries. There was a conflict on whether plaintiff was unconscious after the fall. The driver and an investigating officer testified he was mumbling, and, in effect, that he was groggy. Plaintiff testified he remembered nothing from the time he struck the door until he woke up in the hospital in the presence of a doctor and a nurse. If the foregoing had been the limit of the evidence regarding the circumstances of a sudden turn of the vehicle, we would agree with the able trial judge that negligence of the driver was not...
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