Ruffin Coal & Transfer Co. v. Rich

• Decision Date: 15 April 1926
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 624
• Citation: 108 So. 596,214 Ala. 633
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: RUFFIN COAL & TRANSFER CO. v. RICH.

108 So. 596

214 Ala. 633

RUFFIN COAL & TRANSFER CO. v. RICH.

6 Div. 624

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 15, 1926

Rehearing Denied May 20, 1926

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; John Denson, Judge.

Action by L.E. Rich against the Ruffin Coal & Transfer Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Transferred from the Court of Appeals under Code 1923, § 7326. Affirmed.

Huey &amp Welch, of Bessemer, for appellant.

Bumgardner & Wilson, of Bessemer, and Fred Fite, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

The statement of the case sets out the complaint as amended. Defendant's demurrer was properly overruled. The locus in quo of the accident is described as "on Second avenue near Fourth street, in the city of Birmingham, Jefferson county, Ala.," and this was sufficient to apprise the defendant of the place of the negligence complained of, to the end that its defense might be intelligently prepared. In some of the cases cited by defendant to this point definite location, as for example, whether plaintiff was on defendant's railroad track, was necessary in order to show a duty owing from defendant to plaintiff. But that requirement was fully complied with in this case. The complaint showed that plaintiff's automobile was in the public road where it had a right to be.

Nor is the complaint demurrable in failing to show that defendant's alleged negligence was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury and damage. The allegation of proximate consequence, which is but another way of alleging proximate cause, is explicit, unequivocal, and sufficient.

The question of proximate cause is appropriately discussed with reference to the affirmative charge requested by defendant but without avail. Plaintiff's automobile was being driven along the street at a short interval behind another automobile. Along the street ran two lines of street car rails. Overtaking defendant's motor truck, the foremost automobile passed to the left. Plaintiff's automobile followed, but, as its front wheel drew up opposite the rear wheel of the truck, the latter, as plaintiff's evidence tended to show, suddenly and without warning turned to the left, came into contact with plaintiff's car, and threw it over upon the street car track, so that a street car, moving in the opposite direction and reaching the spot just at that moment, came into collision with plaintiff's car, wrecking it. The question of proximate cause, in its legal acceptation, is, or ought to be, a practical question of common sense. Quite a number of definitions are quoted in Dye-Washburn Co. v. Aldridge, 207 Ala. 471, 93 So. 512. Chief Justice Stone quotes a widely accepted definition in Western Railway v. Mutch, 97 Ala. 194, 11 So. 894, 21 L.R.A. 316, 8 Am.St.Rep. 179. See, also, L. & N. v. Quick, 125 Ala. 553, 28 So. 14; 22 R.C.L. 110. There must be a natural and unbroken sequence between the wrong complained of and the injury suffered--without intervening independent cause. Defendant suggests the street car as an independent efficient intervening cause of plaintiff's injury. But, if defendant's agent was at fault, was guilty of actionable negligence, in bringing about the collision between its truck and plaintiff's automobile--and without such negligence there could be no recovery--it is clear enough that there was no lack of proximate causal connection between the negligence charged and the damage so suffered, and that the presence of the street car served only to aggravate the damage already done in much the same way as if plaintiff's car had been thrown against a stone wall standing in the same place. It is a commonly recognized principle of law "that if a new force or power intervenes, sufficient of itself to stand as the cause of the misfortune, the other must be considered as too remote." Miles v. Hines, 205 Ala. 86, 87 So. 837. We think that in the case supported by plaintiff's evidence the jury might very well have found that the operation of the street car was not sufficient of itself to stand as the cause of plaintiff's misfortune; that so much of the damage as was done by the collision between plaintiff's automobile and the street car would not have been suffered but for the negligence alleged in the complaint and was the proximate consequence of that negligence. "The logical rule in this connection, the rule of common sense and human experience as well, *** is that a person guilty of negligence should be held responsible for all the consequences which a prudent and experienced man, fully acquainted with all the circumstances which in fact existed, whether they could have been ascertained by reasonable diligence or not, would, at the time of the negligent act, have thought reasonably possible to follow, if they had occurred to his mind." Armstrong v. Street Railway, 123 Ala. 233, 26 So. 349.

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