Taylor v. Associated Cab Co., s. 40754
| Decision Date | 10 November 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,Nos. 40754,40755,s. 40754,1 |
| Citation | 110 Ga.App. 616,139 S.E.2d 519 |
| Parties | Curtis M. TAYLOR v. ASSOCIATED CAB COMPANY, Inc., et al. ASSOCIATED CAB COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. Curtis M. TAYLOR |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The grant of a new trial on the ground of the excessiveness of the verdict was within the discretion of the trial judge and, where his discretion has not been abused, this court will not set aside the judgment of the lower court.
2. The admission over objection of certain doctors', drugs, and medicine bills, which were not identified by the doctors as being what they purported to be, i. e., evidence of reasonable and necessary charges and expenses arising out of the particular alleged injury sued for, was harmful error.
Curtis M. Taylor filed an action against Julius Terrell and Associated Cab Co., Inc. and Peachtree Cab Co., Inc., d/b/a Blue & Gray Cab Company, to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained as a result of a collision between an automobile driven by defendant Terrell and a taxicab operated by the defendant cab company, in which the plaintiff was a fare-paying passenger. The petition alleged, in brief, that defendant Terrell was driving in the inside lane of a four-lane street and that, as the defendant cab company's taxi came up behind the other vehicle and veered to its right into the outside or curb lane in order to pass, the leading vehicle also veered to its right, causing the taxi's left front corner to strike the other vehicle's right side, both rear and front, causing the plaintiff to be thrown up and forward out of the rear seat of the taxi, striking his head on the inside of the top of the taxi. The case was tried before a jury, resulting in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff against defendant Blue & Gray Cab Company in the amount of $18,000. The defendant company filed a motion for a new trial on the three usual general grounds, which it amended by the addition of eleven special grounds. The court granted the motion based on special grounds numbered 2 and 10, to which judgment the plaintiff excepts and overruled the remainder of the grounds, both special and general, to which judgment the defendant filed a cross bill of exceptions.
George B. Hooks, Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Woodruff, Savell, Lane & Williams, Edward L. Savell, Atlanta, for defendants in error.
1. We shall consider the main bill of exceptions first. Special ground 2 contends that the court erred in giving the following charge to the jury: It is argued that this charge was tantamount to an instruction that a recovery for the plaintiff would be authorized if he proved one or more allegations of negligence without first deciding whether or not such allegation or allegations were negligence in fact. In Dowis v. McCurdy, 109 Ga.App. 488, 491, 136 S.E.2d 389, this court held that an instruction that proof of any of the allegations of negligence 'would be sufficient in so far as the proof of negligence is concerned' was not so misleading or confusing to the jury in that case as to justify the granting of a new trial, although it would have been more easily understood by adding the words in the way and manner therein alleged. In the case at bar, as in the Dowis case, the court clearly instructed the jury as to both ordinary negligence and negligence per se, defined negligence in the case as the failure to exercise ordinary diligence, and stated that it was a question for the jury to determine whether or not the defendants were negligent, and whether the negligence, if any, was the proximate cause in whole or in part of the injury and damage to the plaintiff. The charge as a whole authorized no recovery for the plaintiff until after a determination by the jury that the defendants, or one of them, were or was in fact negligent in at least one of the ways charged in the particular specification of negligence. See also Mayor & Council of Gainesville v. Hanes, 22 Ga.App. 589, 591(1), 96 S.E. 349. The court erred in granting a new trial on special ground 2.
Special ground 10 complains that the $18,000 verdict for the plaintiff was so excessive as to show mistake, prejudice, or bias on the part of the...
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