Maffett v. Roberts
| Decision Date | 03 October 1980 |
| Citation | 388 So.2d 972 |
| Parties | Ned C. MAFFETT, as Administrator, Etc. v. Danny Ray ROBERTS. 79-110. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Lewis H. Hamner and John A. Tinney, Roanoke, for appellant.
Ray F. Robbins, II, of Gaines, Cleckler, Robbins & Goodrich, Talladega, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a trial court order denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial. Plaintiff Ned C. Maffett, as administrator of the estate of his son, Albert Alonza Jordan, brought suit for his son's wrongful death while a passenger in an automobile driven by defendant Danny Ray Roberts.
Danny Roberts and Albert Jordan were friends and had worked together reroofing a house on April 13, 1978. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, Roberts drove Jordan and another high school student to Georgia, and each bought a six-pack of beer. They rode around talking and drinking beer. Around 5:30 they had supper at Danny Roberts's house. Roberts had a sandwich. By 7:30 they had finished the beer, but they continued to drive around and talk. Between midnight and 1:00 a. m. Roberts took the third boy home and started to drive to Jordan's house. Roberts testified that at that time he was no longer intoxicated and was driving within the speed limit of 55 miles per hour. The car went off the side of the road, and Roberts lost control of it. It crossed a ditch, hit a cement post, flipped over and landed upside down against a telephone pole 400 feet from where it had left the road. Jordan was thrown from the car and killed. Roberts hit his head, had extensive and severe chemical burns from being soaked with gasoline and was temporarily hospitalized.
The accident was investigated by State Trooper Buford Bishop, who did not arrest Roberts for driving while intoxicated or for any other offense arising from his driving that evening. The next morning, Bishop requested Dr. John Campbell to take a blood sample from Roberts. Dr. Campbell asked for Roberts's consent and received it.
In May of 1979, Jordan's father, Ned Maffett, filed a complaint for wrongful death before Judge William Byrd in the Circuit Court of Randolph County, Alabama, alleging that Jordan died as a result of Roberts's wanton misconduct in speeding his car while intoxicated and demanding judgment for $250,000. Defendant filed two motions to suppress the evidence of the blood sample and test results, which were denied. At the trial, the jury found for the defendant. The plaintiff filed a motion for a new trial. The judge, in denying the motion, stated that:
It is ordered that the motion for a new trial be and hereby is denied; however, in order that there be no presumption in favor of the trial court's ruling the following comment seems appropriate.
Except for the scintilla rule, I would have directed a verdict on the liability for the plaintiff. It doesn't seem right for the nisi prius judge to overrule the jury in this case after instructing them they could find for either party. Perhaps someone at a distance can determine what is right.
The plaintiff appealed from the order denying his motion. He asserts that the trial court applied an improper legal standard in denying the motion; that the verdict was contrary to the great weight of the evidence; that the court erred in refusing to allow the plaintiff to introduce into evidence photographs of the car or of the scene; and that the court erred in permitting testimony by Trooper Bishop that no charges were brought against the defendant. We affirm.
We do not agree with the appellant that the trial judge applied the wrong standard of review in denying the motion for a new trial. The judge did not apply the scintilla rule to the motion for a new trial. He merely stated in the past tense that he had applied the rule in submitting the case to the jury. He was entirely correct in doing so. By the scintilla rule, a fact question must go to the jury if the evidence, or any reasonable inference arising therefrom, furnished the merest gleam, glimmer, spark, the smallest trace, or a scintilla of evidence in support of the theory of the complaint. Kilcrease v. Harris, 288 Ala. 245, 259 So.2d 797 (1972). The trial judge in no way indicated that he was using the scintilla rule in denying the motion for a new trial. The rule is inapplicable when a court is ruling on a motion for a new trial. Hodges and Co. v. Albrecht, 288 Ala. 281, 259 So.2d 829 (1972). The appellant asserts that the trial court failed to perform its duty in reviewing the jury verdict. We disagree. The court reviewed the verdict and was unwilling to set it aside as against the great weight of the evidence.
We agree with the trial court's actions. We do not find that the verdict was contrary to the great weight of the evidence. We cannot say that the jury went beyond its prerogative in returning a verdict for the appellee. Jury verdicts are presumed correct, and no ground for a new trial is more carefully scrutinized or more rigidly limited than that a jury verdict is against the weight of the evidence. Dean v. Mayes, 274 Ala. 88, 145 So.2d 439 (1962). When a trial court refuses to grant a motion for a new trial, the presumption that the jury verdict is correct is strengthened. Southern Apartments, Inc. v. Emmett, 269 Ala. 584, 114 So.2d 453 (1972). When, as here, a trial court, by a clear statement in its denial of a motion for a new trial, denies any presumption in favor of its own ruling, it may diminish the traditional presumption in its favor, but it does not thereby abrogate the strong presumption in favor of the jury's verdict. Although this anomalous denial of the motion cannot be considered to strengthen or substantiate the presumption that the jury's verdict was correct, the underlying presumption in favor of the verdict remains strong.
In reviewing the verdict, we must view the evidence that was before the jury in a light most favorable to the appellees, without regard to any view which we might have as to the weight of the evidence. We must also allow such reasonable inferences as can be drawn by a jury. Riley v. Banks, 289 Ala. 56, 265 So.2d 599 (1972). A jury's verdict, presumptively correct, must not be set aside unless, after allowing all reasonable presumptions of its correctness, the preponderance of the evidence is against the verdict and is so decidedly so as to clearly convince us that it is palpably wrong and manifestly unjust. Kilcrease v. Harris, supra. Johnson v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 240 Ala. 219, 198 So. 350 (1940).
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