Peggy Ann of Ga., Inc. v. Scoggins
| Decision Date | 11 April 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 33857,33857,1 |
| Citation | 86 Ga.App. 109,71 S.E.2d 89 |
| Parties | PEGGY ANN OF GEORGIA, Inc. v. SCOGGINS et al |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
Under the allegations of the petition as amended, the sole proximate cause of the injury and death of the person, on account of which the present action was brought, was the negligence of the defendant bus company and its driver; and the court erred in overruling the general demurrer of the other defendant who was jointly sued.
James H. Scoggins, James F. Scoggins, Douglas R. Scoggins, Russell L. Scoggins, and Mrs. M. M. Adams filed an action in the Superior Court of Bartow County, Georgia, against Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc., Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. and two individuals, later dismissed as defendants, seeking to recover damages for the alleged homicide of Mrs. Beulah Scoggins. The petition as amended alleged the following: James H. Scoggins is the surviving husband and the other plaintiffs are the surviving children of the deceased. On the night of January 23, 1951, Mrs. Beulah Scoggins was riding as a fare paying passenger on a bus owned and operated by Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc., and was being transported by it on one of its busses to Summerville, Georgia. The bus was stopped at what is commonly known and referred to as Peggy Ann Bus Stop, located about six miles north of Cartersville, in Bartow County, Georgia, which bus stop is designated by the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc. in the operation of its bus lines as a 'rest stop.' When the said bus was stopped at the Peggy Ann Bus Stop, it was approximately 10 o'clock at night and dark. The Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. was the operator of the said stop, and as such conducted the business of selling bus tickets, food, drink, and nourishment to the passengers of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc. and generally conducted what is known and referred to as a bus station and rest stop, at which the bus company took on and discharged passengers in the conduct of its business and in the conduct of the business of Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. The approaches to the said bus stop consist of a sharp incline on both the north and south approaches thereto; and on the date alleged the driver of the bus operated by the bus company approached the stop by the south approach thereto, and drove the said bus up the approach and parked the same announcing to the said Mrs. Beulah Scoggins and the other passengers therein that the bus would be stopped at this point for a rest stop. Mrs. Scoggins, along with some of the other passengers on the bus, remained in her seat upon being told by the said driver that the bus would be parked only for a few moments. The driver of the bus immediately left the same and departed therefrom, leaving it standing on the said approach and unattended by any of the said defendants or any agent or employee thereof and unattended by the said driver. Since the approaching driveway from the south is on a steep incline downward from the rest stop, and the approaching driveway from the north is on a steep incline downward from the rest stop, the whole parking area was on a steep slope in a generally northern direction or a generally southern direction, and this defendant, although inviting the bus company and its driver and the said passengers, including Mrs. Scoggins, to park on the said driveway, failed to fulfill its legal duty to provide a level and safe parking area for the said business invitees. Shortly after the bus was left unattended and without any warning to the passengers thereon it began to roll backward down the steep approach leading to the bus stop on the south side thereof, and at a time when the bus was gaining momentum, was nearing a street embankment, and was heading backward in a direction over and off of the said embankment and onto and into U. S. Highway 41, which is a heavily traveled highway in said county and is continuously used by heavy tractor and trailer trucks operating at high speed thereon. When the said Mrs. Scoggins was faced with a sudden peril under the conditions above alleged, she attempted to remove herself from the said bus and to a point of safety by jumping from the bus, and at the instance and on the instructions from the driver of the bus she did jump from the bus to the ground, sustaining injuries from which she afterwards died.
The brakes on the bus owned and operated by the said bus company at said time and place were in a defective condition, in that they would not and did not operate with sufficient effectiveness to hold the bus in a firm standing position while it was parked on the incline. The defective condition of the brakes was concealed and invisible to the said Mrs. Scoggins, and she did not know and could not have known by the exercise of ordinary care of the defective condition of the brakes. The driver of the bus, at the said time and place, Julius Cecil Newsome, was an employee of the defendant bus company, and was within the scope of his employment at the time and place alleged. Mrs. Scoggins and the other passengers were, at the time and place herein referred to, all business invitees of the defendant Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. because it was holding out to the said bus company and its driver and all of its passengers, including Mrs. Scoggins, a standing invitation to stop the bus on the said dangerously steep incline (as there was no other safe place provided for stopping and patronizing its place of business), to get out and come in and patronize the place, use its facilities and buy its food and beverages, and it invited any of the passengers, who did not care to get out and go into the place of business, to remain on the bus, as did Mrs. Scoggins, until the other passengers could go in and patronize the business and return to the bus, all to the profit and advantage of Peggy Ann of Geergia, Inc., it being impracticable for it to have the patronage of those who wanted to go into the place of business, without leaving in the bus and protecting on the slope those passengers who did not wish to get out of the bus and go into and patronize the place. This defendant, by so inviting the said Mrs. Scoggins and the other passengers in the bus, and inviting the said motor carrier and its driver to stop and park the bus at the place where it stopped and parked, brought about and created a dangerous and hazardous situation, which together with the action of the driver of the bus in stopping and parking at the said place, constituted joint and concurring acts of negligence resulting in the injury and death of the said Mrs. Scoggins. As the owner and operator of the said lunch room and rest stop, it was under the duty to Mrs. Scoggins and the other passengers to anticipate that the said bus, by reason of its defects or negligent handling by the driver thereof, or by intervention of third parties, might under the force of gravity roll down the steep incline and injure or kill the said Mrs. Scoggins and other passengers on the said bus. The injury and death of Mrs. Scoggins could and ought to have been anticipated by Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. because of the very obviously dangerous situation which it was creating and maintaining in inviting the said bus company and its driver to park the bus on the said dangerous slope without any protection against its rolling down the slope, as in fact it did. It was under the duty to protect Mrs. Scoggins and the other invited passengers on the bus from the dangerous situation which it created, and it failed to make any provision to guard them from the dangerous effects of the acts and omissions of it. If it had undertaken to provide for their protection, it did not properly supervise the said protection or cause the bus company to protect the business invitees from injury and death by reason of the bus rolling down the steep grade. All of the hereinabove mentioned acts and omissions of Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc. constituted negligence, and together with the acts and omissions as hereinabove alleged of the bus company, constituted joint and concurrent acts of negligence, and together were the proximate cause of the injury and death of the said Mrs. Scoggins.
The bus company furnished what is commonly known and referred to as 'scotch blocks' to Peggy Ann of Georgia, Inc., for the purpose of placing them under the wheels of buses when parked on the steep incline as aforesaid, on its premises so as to insure that the said buses would not roll down the incline and would remain in a...
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