Slaton v. Atlanta Gas Light Co

• Decision Date: 09 March 1940
• Docket Number: No. 27862.,27862.
• Citation: 7 S.E.2d 769
• Parties: SLATON. v. ATLANTA GAS LIGHT CO.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

7 S.E.2d 769

SLATON.

v.ATLANTA GAS LIGHT CO.

No. 27862.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

March 9, 1940.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. "When a plaintiff's right to recover depended upon the establishment of a particular fact, and the only proof offered for this purpose was circumstantial evidence from which the existence of such fact might be inferred, but which did not demand a finding to that effect, a recovery by the plaintiff was not lawful, when, by the positive and uncontradicted testimony of unimpeached witnesses, which was perfectly consistent with the circumstantial evidence relied on by the plaintiff, it was affirmatively shown that no such fact existed." Frazier v. Georgia Railroad & Banking Co., 108 Ga. 807, 33 S.E. 996.

2. It results from an application of the above principle to the evidence in the instant case, the judge did not err in directing a verdict in favor of the defendant.

Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; Paul S. Etheridge, Judge.

Action by Alice Slaton against the Atlanta Gas Light Company for injuries allegedly caused by an explosion of gas in plaintiff's home. Judgment for defendant on a directed verdict, and plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

The plaintiff, Mrs. Alice Slaton, brought suit against the defendant, the Atlanta Gas Light Company, for alleged personal injuries as the result of an explosion of gas in her home. After the plaintiff had introduced all of her evidence, the defendant made a motion for a nonsuit which was overruled. The evidence for the defendant was introduced at the close of which the defendant made a motion for a directed verdict and the motion was sustained and the judge directed the jury to find in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff excepts.

The plaintiff alleged in effect that she bought a stove from the defendant company and about a year thereafter it exploded and she received certain burns. That she filed complaints with the defendant company and that on or about December 16, 1937, the defendant company's workmen made certain repairs and inspections upon the thermostat (an instrument which regulates the temperature of the oven) on the stove and represented to her that the stove was in good working order and would not again explode. That thereafter, on March 5, 1938, the stove again exploded as a result of the defective repairs made by the defendant upon the thermostat and she received the injuries now complained of.

The defendant denied that its agents repaired the stove in the manner alleged in the plaintiff's petition but admitted that on December 16, 1937, they installed a new valve regulating the top burner of the stove, and an inspection of the stove revealed nothing was wrong with the thermostat and the oven.

The evidence disclosed that prior to the repair work done on December 16, 1937, the defendant's workmen had made certain minor repairs and adjustments on the stove, such as cleaning the burners which had become clogged with grease, dirt or jelly and inspected the thermostat and oven and found that nothing was wrong with either.

The evidence for the plaintiff showed that on December 16, 1937, the defendant's workmen made certain repairs on the stove, but that it was not actually known to the plaintiff whether the repairs were made on the thermostat or not. The defendant's evidence was that defendant's workmen replaced the valve regulating the top burner of the stove, cleaned the top burners andchecked the thermostat to the oven and found that it was in good working order. This evidence of the defendant company was by the testimony of the defendant's workmen and was direct, positive, uncontradicted and was not inconsistent with the circumstantial evidence of the plaintiff.

The testimony of the plaintiff's witnesses showed that the oven and thermostat were used frequently between December 16, 1937, the date of the repairs by the defendant's workmen, and March 5, 1938, the date of the explosion resulting in the injuries here complained of.

We now come to consider what occurred on March 5, 1938. The testimony of the plaintiff is substantially that she got up that morning to get breakfast, that she had lit the top burners of the stove and oven, preparatory to cooking some biscuit, that she did not know how long the oven had been lighted or heating but she made up the biscuit and had them on the table close to the stove and had other things in the stove as usual, when the stove exploded on the top, that the explosion did not blow the stove to pieces, that she did not know whether it blew the door open or not, and she did not know how she got burned. Mrs. Pierce, plaintiff's sister, testified that she was there the morning Mrs. Slaton, plaintiff, got burned and she saw the burns but did not see the explosion, that the stove was not blown open nor was the oven door blown open. The remaining part of the evidence for the plaintiff as to what happened on March 5th was indefinite and uncertain, leaving much to circumstantial evidence as to how the explosion occurred.

The evidence of the defendant as to what occurred on that day and the reason for the explosion, if any, is both positive and direct. T. H. Townsend testified that he was instructed to meet Mr. Finch at the home of Mrs. Slaton (plaintiff) on the morning of March 5, 1938, between 10:00 and 10:30 o'clock, that Finch was there before he got there but that the...