Stone v. Bethea

• Decision Date: 29 April 1968
• Docket Number: No. 18783,18783
• Citation: 251 S.C. 157,161 S.E.2d 171
• Parties: Carl Hall STONE, Apellant, v. Major BETHEA, Respondent.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

Page 171

161 S.E.2d 171

251 S.C. 157

Carl Hall STONE, Apellant, v. Major BETHEA, Respondent.

No. 18783.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

April 29, 1968.

S. Norwood Gasque, A. Glenn Greene, Jr., Latta, for appellant.

D. Laurence McIntosh, of Wright, Scott, Blackwell & Powers, Florence, W. B. Hawkins, J. D. McInnis, Jr., Dillon, for respondent.

MOSS, Chief Justice.

Major Bethea, the respondent herein, owns and operates a laundry and dry cleaning business in the Town of Dillon, near the intersection of McArthur Avenue and Hampton Street in said town. The building faces Hampton Street and the western side of said building is adjacent to McArthur Avenue and some 10 or 12 feet from the paved portion thereof. The truck of the respondent was customarily parked in the area between the building and McArthur Avenue.

It appears that on June 5, 1965, after the aforesaid place of business was closed, the respondent picked up clothes for cleaning and drove north on McArthur Avenue and at about 8:30 P.M. parked his 1957 Ford automobile along side his place of business in the space above described. The respondent got out of his car, leaving the keys in the ignition, and took the clothes that he had collected into the building. Just after the respondent had entered the building he heard the motor on his automobile start and saw his car go around the front of said building being driven by a person who had stolen it. The respondent engaged a taxi and followed his car to a point about one mile south of the Town of Dillon where the thief had collided with a car driven by Carl Hall Stone, the appellant herein.

The appellant instituted this action to recover damages for the bodily injuries he sustained in the aforesaid collision. The appellant alleged that the respondent parked his automobile in a place readily accessible to the public and left it unattended in the nighttime, leaving the key in the switch and without locking the ignition. It was further alleged that the conduct of the respondent in leaving his said automobile unattended at the time and place in question, with the key thereto in the switch, constituted negligence on the part of the respondent and a violation of Section 46--491 of the Code, prohibiting the same, and such was the proximate cause of the injuries sustained by the appellant.

The respondent, by his answer, alleged that his automobile was stolen by a thief and a collision thereafter occurred between the automobile of the respondent, driven by the thief, and that of the appellant, and the negligent act of the thief was the proximate cause of the bodily injuries sustained by the appellant. The respondent denied any liability to the appellant.

This case was tried before The Honorable W. L. Rhodes, Jr., Presiding Judge, and a jury, at the 1967 October Term of the Court of Common Pleas for Dillon County. At the close of all of the testimony, the respondent moved the court to direct a verdict in his favor upon the ground that there was no evidence of actionable negligence on his part that operated as the proximate cause of the injuries to the appellant. The appellant also made a motion for a directed verdict on the ground that the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the testimony was that the respondent was negligent as a matter of law because of his violation of Section 46--491 of the Code. The trial judge granted the motion of the respondent for a directed verdict on the ground that even assuming that the respondent violated Section 46--491 of the Code in leaving his automobile unattended at the time and place in question, with the key thereto in the switch, such was not the proximate cause of the injuries sustained by the appellant. This ruling is here challenged by the appellant.

We held in Roberts v. Campbell, S.C., 157 S.E.2d 867, that Section 46--491 of the Code does not apply where an automobile is parked on private property with the keys in the ignition. We adhere to this rule. Here, it is unnecessary for us to decide where the automobile of the appellant was parked and, even if it was parked in violation of the aforesaid section of the Code, to allow recovery would do violence to the rule of proximate cause as we understand and apply it in this jurisdiction.

The practical question for decision here is whether the failure of the respondent to remove the switch key from his automobile was the proximate cause of the injuries to the appellant. It is conclusive from the testimony that the injuries to the appellant resulted while the automobile was being operated in a negligent manner by a thief who stole it. It is the position of the respondent, assuming that he was negligent in failing to remove the switch key from his unattended automobile, that such negligence was cut off or insulated by the intervening negligence of the thief who stole his automobile and that such negligence of the thief was the sole and proximate cause of the injuries to the appellant and could not have been foreseen by the respondent in the exercise of reasonable care and was not the natural and probable result of his original negligence.

Foreseeability of some injury from an act or omission is a prerequisite to its being a proximate cause of the injury for which recovery is sought. Kennedy v. Carter, 249 S.C. 168, 153 S.E.2d 312. The test, therefore, by which the negligent conduct of the original wrongdoer is to be insulated as a matter of law by the independent negligent act of another, is whether the intervening act and the injury resulting therefrom are of such character that the author of the primary negligence should have reasonably foreseen and anticipated them in the light of attendant circumstances. The law requires only reasonable foresight, and when the injury complained of is not reasonably foreseeable, in the exercise of due care, there is no liability. One is not charged with foreseeing that which is unpredictable or that which could not be expected to happen. When the negligence appears merely to have brought about a condition of affairs, or a situation in which another and entirely independent and efficient agency intervenes to cause the injury, the latter is to be deemed the direct or proximate cause, and the former only the indirect or remote cause. Locklear v. Southeastern Stages, Inc., 193 S.C. 309, 8 S.E.2d 321.

The general rule of law is that when, between negligence and the occurrence of an injury, there intervenes a willful, malicious, and criminal act of a third person producing...