Roberson v. Lampton

• Decision Date: 13 December 1974
• Citation: 516 S.W.2d 838
• Parties: Alene ROBERSON, Appellant, v. Leroy LAMPTON and Robert M. Carwile, Appellees. Alene ROBERSON, Appellant, v. Paul EHRESMANN, Jr., Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 838

516 S.W.2d 838

Alene ROBERSON, Appellant, v. Leroy LAMPTON and Robert M. Carwile, Appellees.

Alene ROBERSON, Appellant, v. Paul EHRESMANN, Jr., Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Dec. 13, 1974.

C. M. Leibson, Leibson, Dolt & McCarthy, Louisville, for appellant.

H. B. Kinsolving, III, Kinsolving & Kinsolving, Shelbyville, for appellees Leroy Lampton and Robert M. Carwile.

James W. Shepherd, Shepherd & Rouse, Carrollton, for appellee Paul Ehresmann, Jr.

THOMAS B. SPAIN, Special Commissioner.

This appeal stems from a vehicular collision which occurred on March 25, 1969, on U.S. Highway 42, in Trimble County Kentucky, approximately three miles east of Bedford.

Plaintiff below, Alene Roberson, was riding as a passenger in an automobile owned and operated by her husband, who is not a party to this litigation. The Roberson car was traveling southwest from Cincinnati toward Louisville, in a line of traffic and immediately behind a Corvair driven by Paul Ehresmann, Jr. and a tractor-trailer owned by Amity Drum Service, Inc. and driven by Willard R. Beaman.

After the three vehicles had been traveling in a line for about fifteen minutes, a tire and wheel came off the right rear dual wheels of the Amity trailer and went over a fence and out into a field off the right side of the road. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, another tire and wheel came off the left rear of the trailer and struck the front of the Ehresmann Corvair. The tire and wheel then caromed off the front of the Corvair and across the center line of the highway, striking the driver's side of a tractor-trailer owned by Leroy Lampton and being driven in a northeasterly direction toward Cincinnati by Robert M. Carwile. Immediately after it was struck by the tire and wheel, the Lampton-Carwile tractor-trailer came across the center line of the highway and struck the Roberson automobile in which the plaintiff was riding. The accident occurred about eleven o'clock in the morning during a drizzling rain and with the road surface wet.

Appellant, Alene Roberson, subsequently brought an action for personal injuries against Amity Drum Service, Inc., Willard R. Beaman (driver of Amity's truck), Leroy Lampton and Robert M. Carwile, as owner and operator of the truck which struck the car in which she was riding, and Paul Ehresmann, Jr., owner and operator of the Corvair, alleging that the collision was caused by the negligence of any two, three, four or all of the defendants. After the pleadings were made up and some discovery begun, the trial court granted a motion for summary judgment on behalf of the defendants Lampton and Carwile. Some six weeks later, the trial court also granted summary judgment to defendant Paul Ehresmann, Jr. Both orders granting summary judgments were designated by the trial court as final and appealable orders. Accordingly, since she could not wait until the completion of her action against the defendants Amity Drum Service, Inc. and Willard R. Beaman, Mrs. Roberson pursued this appeal from the two summary judgments.

We think the trial court acted precipitously in granting summary judgments to the appellees.

The record reveals that as of the time that the summary judgments were granted, the only eye-witness who had testified by deposition as to the circumstances of the accident was the appellant--and she was not even the driver of any of the four vehicles involved. Willard R. Beaman, the driver of the Amity tractor-trailer, could not be located to answer plaintiff's interrogatories. The owner and driver of the Corvair, Paul...