Locke v. Ford

• Decision Date: 28 September 1936
• Docket Number: No. 25781.,25781.
• Citation: 54 Ga.App. 322,187 S.E. 715
• Parties: LOCKE et al. v. FORD.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

54 Ga.App. 322

187 S.E. 715

LOCKE et al.

v.FORD.

No. 25781.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Sept. 28, 1936.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Muscogee County; C. F. McLaughlin, Judge.

Action by Mrs. W. J. Ford, next friend, etc., against J. O. Locke and others. To review a judgment for plaintiff, defendants bring error.

Affirmed.

Slade, Swift, Pease & Davidson, of Columbus, for plaintiffs in error.

W. R. Flournoy and Palmer & Wohlwender, all of Columbus, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, Presiding Judge.

1. The operators of a taxicab business of "transporting the general public for hire are carriers of passengers, and amenable to the legal duty of exercising extraordinary diligence for their protection. Code 1933, §§ 18-201, 18-204; Durfey v. Milligan, 265 Mich. 97, 251 N.W. 356; 10 C.J. 606, 607, §§ 1033, 1034, and cit.

2. A child four and a half years old is conclusively presumed to be incapable of contributory negligence. Crawford v. So. Ry. Co., 106 Ga. 870 (2), 33 S.E. 826.

3. Ordinarily a carrier of passengers by street car or other conveyance on city streets discharges its legal duty to a passenger when it deposits him at a usual and reasonably safe place for alighting and crossing the street, and is under no obligation to wait until approaching automobiles have stopped, or to warn him of the usual dangers of traffic, which in his exercise of ordinary care would be avoidable. But a carrier is not permitted to deposit a passenger at a place which it knows will reasonably expose him to unusual and unnecessary peril, and it may be held liable for a proximately resulting injury. Macon Railway & Light Co. v. Vining, 120 Ga. 511, 513 (1), 48 S.E. 232; Augusta Ry. Co. v. Glover, 92 Ga. 132 (10), 146, 18 S.E. 406; Jernigan v. Georgia Ry. & Power Co., 31 Ga.App. 273 (2, 3), 120 S.E. 439; Georgia Railway & Power Co. v. Gilbert, 39 Ga.App. 56, 146 S.E. 33; Metts v. L. & N. R. Co., 52 Ga. App. 115, 117, 182 S.E. 531; Martin v. Georgia Power Co., 45 Ga.App. 799, 165 S.E. 880; 10 C.J. 914, § 1340.

4. Voluntary, intentional concert in the acts of tort-feasors is not necessary to create joint liability, if the separate acts combine naturally and directly to produce and thus constitute the proximate cause of a single injury. Kelly v. Ga. Ry. & Power Co., 24 Ga.App. 439 (4), 101 S.E. 401; Scearce v. Gainesville, 33 Ga.App. 411 (3), 126 S.E. 883; McGin-nis v. Shaw, 46 Ga.App. 248, 249, 167 S. E. 533; Georgia Power Co. v. Kinard, 47 Ga.App. 483, 486, 170 S.E. 688; Longino v. Moore (Ga.App.) 187 S.E. 203; and cit.

5. The instant amended petition by a next friend of a child four and a half years old, suing the operators of a taxi-cab and the driver of a truck which ran over the child after...