Richardson v. Williamson

• Decision Date: 13 May 1971
• Docket Number: No. 19220,19220
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Herbert Vernon RICHARDSON, Appellant, v. Samuel Vassey WILLIAMSON, Respondent.

Page 262

181 S.E.2d 262

256 S.C. 134

Herbert Vernon RICHARDSON, Appellant, v. Samuel Vassey WILLIAMSON, Respondent.

No. 19220.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

May 13, 1971.

Nelson, Mullins, Grier & Scarborough, Columbia, for appellant.

Henderson, Salley & Bodenheimer, and Williams & Johnson, Aiken, for respondent.

BUSSEY, Justice:

In this action plaintiff-appellant seeks to recover for personal injuries and property damage sustained in an automobile collision. Appeal is from an order directing a verdict in favor of the defendant. The date of the collision was December 30, 1960, and suit was commenced on November 18, 1966, in the Court of Common Pleas for Orangeburg County. The cause was subsequently removed to Aiken County, the residence of the defendant, and tried there at the June 1970 term of court, nearly ten years after the collision.

At the close of plaintiff's case, the defendant started to make a motion for an involuntary nonsuit, but, upon being interrupted by a question from the trial judge, decided to offer no evidence on behalf of the defendant and moved for a directed verdict on the sole ground that there was 'not sufficient evidence of any actionable negligence' on the part of the defendant. The trial judge granted such motion, holding not only that there was no evidence of negligence, but that even if there were such negligence, there was no evidence that such was the proximate cause of the collision.

Assuming, as contended by the defendant, that there was no evidence of actionable negligence, a motion for a nonsuit was the appropriate one, rather than a motion for a directed verdict. Such, however, is here of little consequence as, in our view, the defendant was entitled to neither a nonsuit nor a directed verdict.

It is elementary that in considering whether a defendant is entitled to either a nonsuit or a directed verdict, the evidence and all the inferences reasonably deducible therefrom have to be viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. We, accordingly, state the evidence and the inferences deducible therefrom in the light of such principle.

The collision occurred at approximately 1:30 P.M., December 30, 1960, approximately 1.3 miles north of the intersection of Highway 3 and Highway 394 in Orangeburg County. Such intersection is approximately three miles south of Poole's Mill, South Carolina. The plaintiff, who was alone, was driving a Chevrolet in a northerly direction en route from Springfield to Poole's Mill. The defendant was driving an Oldsmobile, in which there were several passengers, in a southerly direction toward Springfield.

Both vehicles were badly damaged and plaintiff and all occupants of the Oldsmobile were severely injured. The plaintiff has no recollection of the actual collision. He was rendered unconscious and remained so for approximately three weeks. He was in the hospital for a total of nine months and was sent at one time to Duke Hospital in an effort to determine if he could regain his memory concerning the actual collision, but such efforts were a failure and at the time of the trial he still did not remember the actual impact, or have any recollection of seeing the defendant's car prior thereto. The defendant also had a loss of memory, for a time, but regained it within several months after the collision.

A highway patrolman investigated the collision at the time, but had long since lost his notes and had virtually no recollection as to the details. The only other witnesses were the plaintiff himself and a Mr. Fickling, who came upon the collision immediately after it happened. In evidence were several photographs of the two vehicles and several of the scene of the collision, looking both north and south on the highway. The evidence does not disclose with precision the point of impact, but as plaintiff approached the scene, the road ahead of him curved to his right (a fairly gentle curve according to the photographs) and then ascended a slight hill toward the end of the curve. As plaintiff was approaching the curve there was a tractor to his right of the highway with a man thereon and two boys standing beside the same. Because of the curve and the fact that the plaintiff did not know whether the tractor was about to enter the highway, he slowed his speed to about fifteen or twenty miles per hour in passing the tractor. He waved at the people about the tractor as he went by. Plainti...