Roberts v. Ray
| Decision Date | 05 December 1958 |
| Citation | 45 Tenn.App. 280,322 S.W.2d 435 |
| Parties | Esque ROBERTS v. W. E. RAY. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Looby & Williams, Nashville, for Esque Roberts.
Marshall & Blackmon, Nashville, for W. E. Ray.
This suit was brought by W. E. Ray against Esque Roberts in the General Sessions Court to recover for damages to plaintiff's store building, alleged to have been caused by defendant's negligence in allowing his automobile to escape, run down a grade in the street, and crash into the building.
In that Court there was a judgment for plaintiff for $246 and costs. Defendant Roberts appealed to the Circuit Court where the case was tried before the Circuit Judge, without a jury, and he found the issues for plaintiff and rendered judgment for him against defendant for $246.43 and costs.
Defendant appealed to this Court and insists that there is no evidence that he was guilty of any negligence causing the damages sued for and no evidence to support the judgment; and that the evidence preponderates against the judgment for plaintiff.
It appears that on the night of June 2, 1957, defendant parked his Buick automobile in front of his apartment in the Preston Taylor Homes on 40th Avenue North, which slopes down grade northward or toward plaintiff's store, located on 40th Avenue some 200 or 300 feet down the street from the Preston Taylor Homes. Sometime after defendant got out of the car, left it parked there, and went into his apartment, the car, without any apparent cause, broke loose, ran diagonally across and down the street, knocked down a Coca Cola sign, and crashed into the front of plaintiff's store, causing the damages sued for.
It does not appear that any witness saw the car as it started and ran down the hill or that anyone knew why it did this. There was no proof that any person was about or near the car after it was parked by defendant and before it ran down the street and struck the store. While two or three witnesses said they heard the crash, they did not see the car before the the crash and did not see any person about it immediately afterwards. Soon after, the police investigated the occurrence and found no evidence of any attempted theft or any intermeddling by any person.
We think these circumstances are such as to make a case of res ipsa loquitur. '(W)here the thing (causing the harm) is shown to be under the management of defendant or his servants, and the accident is such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by defendant, that the accident arose from want of care'. Sullivan v. Crabtree, 36 Tenn.App. 469, 473, 258 S.W.2d 782, 783-784; McCloud v. City of La Follette, 38 Tenn.App. 553, 559, 276 S.W.2d 763, 766, and cases there cited.
The automobile was admittedly under the management or control of defendant in that he parked it and left it on the street with a downhill grade toward plaintiff's store, and the accident was such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if he who has the management uses proper care. Ordinarily, the circumstance that a parked automobile rolls driverless downhill, and causes injury, is, without more, enough to warrant an inference of negligence on the part of the one who parked it. Whitaker v. Bandy, 4 Tenn.App. 202; McCloud v. City of LaFollette, supra.
The maxim res ipsa loquitur means that the facts of the occurrence evidence negligence; that the circumstances unexplained justify an inference of negligence. Res ipsa loquitur 'is not an arbitrary rule (but) rather a common sense appraisal of the probative value of circumstantial evidence'. Boykin v. Chase Bottling Works, 32 Tenn.App. 508, 522, 222 S.W.2d 889, 896; Sullivan v. Crabtree, supra.
The general rule for all cases of circumstantial evidence--both ordinary cases and res ipsa loquitur cases--is that to make out his case, plaintiff does not have to eliminate all other possible causes or inferences than that of defend...
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Williams v. Kfc Nat. Management Co.
...stranger," see Prosser and Keeton § 39, at 249 — yet courts generally permitted these cases to reach a jury. Cf. Roberts v. Ray, 45 Tenn.App. 280, 322 S.W.2d 435, 437-38 (1959). Multiple defendants were a similar, if more complicated, affair. Only in certain circumstances, generally when th......
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