Smith v. General Motors Corporation

• Decision Date: 25 November 1955
• Docket Number: No. 15357.,15357.
• Citation: 227 F.2d 210
• Parties: Lenora Gorman SMITH, Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

227 F.2d 210 (1955)

Lenora Gorman SMITH, Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 15357.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

November 25, 1955.

W. Wallace Shafer, Lakeland, Fla., Bentley & Shafer, Lakeland, Fla., of counsel, for appellant.

T. Paine Kelly, Jr., Tampa, Fla., Macfarlane, Ferguson, Allison, & Kelly, Tampa, Fla., of counsel, for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and TUTTLE and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

This appeal from a directed verdict for the defendant in a negligence action presents the question of how clear a case a plaintiff must show by circumstantial evidence in order to establish a jury question, when there is no direct evidence available to show what the actual events in dispute were. Early in the morning of February 6, 1952, J. E. Smith, Jr., left his Leesburg, Florida home for work in Orlando, Florida, in his 44-day old 1951 Oldsmobile 88 Super DeLuxe sedan. At approximately 5:30 A. M. he stopped at the Sunny Side Drive-in Restaurant in Leesburg, where he bought a pack of cigarettes and had two cups of coffee. About ten minutes later he left, and was never again seen alive.

Some time after 5:30 that morning J. M. Collins, bridgetender of the Dead River Bridge, between Leesburg and Tavares, Florida, heard a crash as he was dressing. He hurriedly pulled on the rest of his clothes and ran from his home at the east end of the 600-foot long bridge toward the west end. About 47 feet from the west end of the bridge lay the wreckage of Smith's car, facing in an almost southern direction, with Smith under the engine, dead. The right front wheel had been driven back further than the rear wheels. Hundreds of pieces of wreckage were scattered over the bridge. The generator had been hurled 288 feet down the bridge, and the car was so completely demolished that the wreckers were unable to salvage a single salable part out of it. It took two trucks to haul away the wreck, because it could not be towed. The wrecker driver testified to having handled over 2000 wrecked cars, and to have found only three or four in any more contorted condition. He also testified to the position of the speedometer hand, and that flesh like that of a finger or hand was caught in the radio panel, about two inches above the buttons.

Shortly after 6:00 o'clock, Douglas Sewell, Deputy Sheriff of Lake County, Florida, received a call at his home to investigate the accident. When he arrived at the scene, he found cars lined up for quite a distance back from the bridge, the wreckage having blocked traffic. As soon as the "investigating jury" finished its investigation, he and a group of bystanders began to clear the road, to get traffic going. In so doing, they picked up the pieces of the wreckage, and threw some into the wrecker's trucks and some off the bridge.

Neither the road approaching the bridge nor the bridge itself revealed any skid marks. However, on the shoulder of the road, about six inches off the pavement, and four or five feet from the bridge abutment, was a place where the grass and dirt had been torn up. Next to the abutment was a guard post to which a guard rail was attached. This ran alongside the road, about a foot from the pavement. The guard rail was completely destroyed at a point beginning about eight feet from the abutment. The abutment had been hit, and was left with the imprint of a headlight, about 18 inches from the edge thereof. The part of the abutment which had been hit had been knocked ten feet down a slope, and the concrete guard post next to it was pulverized. Wreckage was strewn from where the car hit to where it was found (a door from the right side of the car lay next to the guard rail), but there were no other marks except a rubber smudge on the north side of the bridge, behind the wreck.

It was dark at the time of the crash. There was some evidence that there were patches of fog in the vicinity.

That afternoon, William Alsobrook, out of curiosity, went down under the bridge and examined the pieces of wreckage that had been thrown there. He found a part of the steering relay rod, with the end adjustment plug partially screwed out, and the cotter pin gone. This member holds the idler arm ball stud and the tie rod ball stud in place. The tie rod was never found, but other parts of the assembly were. The purpose of this assembly is to assure the uniformity of action between right and left wheels, since there is no front axle. These pieces of physical evidence, plus expert testimony to interpret them, are the heart of the plaintiff's case.

The complaint originally alleged that by virtue of the end plug becoming loosened, the idler arm became disengaged from the relay rod as Smith approached the bridge, rendering the automobile uncontrollable and proximately causing the accident. The defendant's answer denied that there was any failure in the steering mechanism, and specifically that any part of the steering mechanism became disengaged prior to the accident. It also alleged contributory negligence generally, and in a separate defense contributory negligence in driving at a speed in excess of 90 miles per hour. Plaintiff then amended her complaint to add an additional count, alleging that the loosened end plug failed to hold the tie rod ball stud in its proper place, resulting in a loss of control permitting "a sudden and uncontrollable movement of the right front wheel," causing the accident. In an amended answer, the defendant denied this allegation, and reiterated its other defenses.

The cause then proceeded to trial, and at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict. This was granted as to the first count, but denied as to the second. The court reserved judgment on the motion as to the entire case. Plaintiff then asked leave to amend the first count, so as to eliminate the allegation that the idler arm had become disengaged from the relay rod. This was permitted, and the plaintiff alleged instead that the idler arm became loose to an extent rendering the steering uncontrollable.

The case was later submitted to a jury, and one of the five points in plaintiff's brief attacks an instruction of the court in its charge. The jury was unable to agree, however, and the court then considered the motion for a directed verdict, which it granted after argument. The major question presented on the appeal is the correctness of this ruling. However, plaintiff also alleges error in the exclusion of some of her proffered expert testimony, and in the inclusion of some of the defendant's. Appellant's evidence tended to show that the end plug was not loosened by the accident, but had been in a partially¹ unscrewed position for at least some time prior thereto. There was also evidence by which plaintiff sought to show that there never had been a cotter pin inserted to secure the plug, or that if it had been inserted, it had not been properly spread, and later fell out. Plaintiff's evidence also sought to show that this could have escaped detection at the factory and in checks by the dealer, and that the unscrewing occurred gradually, so that Smith would not have been aware of the looseness before the time of the accident. Plaintiff's experts also testified that looseness in the steering mechanism could lead to loss of control, and could cause a front wheel "tramp" or hop. Plaintiff argues that this is what happened:

"One hop of this violent tramp, threw this car, uncontrollable, into a right hand dart and the metal guard railing then channeled this car and driver-occupant directly into the bridge abutment with the resultant tragic consequences."

He argues that this is the only reasonable hypothesis, pointing to the absence of skid marks, and to the scuffed-up shoulder. He attempts to show this by reference to the expert testimony adduced by both sides, and relies also on a physical equation to show the degree of looseness that obtained. The trial court was unimpressed with this evidence, finding that to submit it to a jury would be to permit the jury to speculate too freely on what actually happened when the crash occurred and then as to what might have brought these happenings about.

In its memorandum granting the defendant's motion, the court did not say exactly where it thought that the plaintiff's case failed. Its remarks at the argument indicate, however, that it assumed for the purpose of its action, that a looseness in the mechanism had been proved, and further that such looseness could cause a lack of steering control, which could cause such an accident. It held that no jury question was presented because there was no evidence showing that there probably had been a lack of steering control at the time of the accident, and that, if so, this lack of steering control had probably caused the accident.

Because of the absence of any eye-witnesses to the accident, the plaintiff's case here rests solely on circumstantial evidence. Taking pieces of demonstrative evidence from the wrecked automobile, she seeks by the interpretative testimony of various experts to reconstruct the events of the accident. The events urged as proved by inference do not encompass only the ten or fifteen-minute period following Smith's departure from the Sunny Side Drive-in and preceding Collins' discovery of the wrecked car. They begin earlier, with the assembly of the automobile, and continue throughout its entire 44-day life, including its previous operation by the deceased and periodic maintenance checks by Triangle Motors. The plaintiff's right to recover depends upon an answer in her favor by the fact-finder on each of the evidentiary propositions she would submit to it, and a failure to establish any link in the sequence of events from assembly to destruction, as she views those events, would disprove her case and expose her theory as false.

This is not to indicate that there is any rule which forbids a jury from...