Terry v. Nelms
Decision Date | 17 May 1951 |
Docket Number | 8 Div. 567 |
Citation | 256 Ala. 291,54 So.2d 282 |
Parties | TERRY v. NELMS. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
R. B. Patton and D. U. Patton, Athens, and S. A. Lynne, Decatur, for appellant.
Peach, Caddell & Shanks, Decatur, for appellee.
This charge was given for defendant:
The appellant brought suit against appellee for personal injuries and property damage growing out of a collision of his automobile with defendant's truck at a street and highway intersection in the city of Decatur, Alabama. The usual conflicting tendencies of evidence obtained here, as in most such trials, but in view of our conclusions it will not be necessary to discuss it. From a judgment for the defendant, the plaintiff has appealed.
The question of importance is whether reversible error prevailed in giving for the defendant two patently erroneous requested charges, numbers 4 and 9. We will here reproduce 4 and the reporter will set out 9.
Concededly the charge is erroneous in failing to hypothesize that the negligence of the plaintiff to bar recovery must proximately contribute to his injuries. Such negligence must be a concurring proximate cause of the injury and not merely a remote or antecedent occasion or condition of the injury to be available under a plea of contributory negligence. Hayes v. Alabama Power Co., 239 Ala. 207, 194 So. 505; Kelly v. Hanwick, 228 Ala. 336, 153 So. 269; Dudley v. Alabama Utilities Service Co., 225 Ala. 531, 144 So. 5; J. H. Burton & Sons Co. v. May, 212 Ala. 435, 103 So. 46; Hines v. Champion, 204 Ala. 227, 85 So. 511; McCaa v. Thomas, 207 Ala. 211, 92 So. 414; Reaves v. Anniston Knitting Mills, 154 Ala. 565, 45 So. 702; Newsome v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 20 Ala.App. 349, 102 So. 61.
Charge number 9 is subject to the same defect.
The consistent holding of this court has been that error to reverse must be pronounced in such a misdirection to the jury. McCaa v. Thomas, supra; Dudley v. Alabama Utilities Service Co., supra; Newsome v. Louisville & N. R. Co., supra; Seaboard A. L. Ry. Co. v. Laney, 199 Ala. 654, 75 So. 15; Thompson v. Duncan, 76 Ala. 334; Carter v. Ne-Hi Bottling Co., 226 Ala. 324, 146 So. 821; Brooks v. Rowell, 222 Ala. 616, 133 So. 903; Kelly v. Hanwick, supra.
True, as argued by able counsel, there were other instructions which properly charged on contributory negligence, but the precedent has also been established that the error in giving such an Dudley v. Alabama Utilities Service Co., supra, 225 Ala. 531, 532-533, 144 So. 5, 6.
The defendant's answering argument is also predicated on the principle of error without injury. McGough Bakeries Corp. v. Reynolds, 250 Ala. 592, 35 So.2d 332, 337, is thought to sustain the position. The case at hand is to be easily distinguished. Here positively erroneous instructions on the law of contributory negligence were given to the jury. They were fundamentally bad, in which circumstance we have said a reversal of the case is in order. In the McGough case the charges considered were held to be incomplete, but not altogether incorrect, and that the court's oral charge that (emphasis supplied) effectually eradicated any prejudice which might have prevailed by the giving of the charges there considered.
In the case at bar, however, no such explanation was made by the trial court and, indeed, the same vice inhered in a portion of its oral instruction as regards contributory negligence, where the court charged: 'Nor does the defense of contributory negligence, which I will later define to you, prevent a recovery, if it is not the proximate cause, or if it does not contribute in some degree to the injury or damage.' The second alternative of the quoted excerpt pretermits proximate causation. This instruction, rather than remedying the defect in the two erroneous charges, approved them. To illustrate, the same situation prevailed in the case of Chapman v. Blackmore, 39 Ohio App. 425, 177 N.E. 772-773, where the court was considering an instruction in the alternative that the contributing negligence should have been either a proximate cause or must have contributed in the slightest degree to the accident. In analyzing the error, the court said: 'By the defendant's request No. 1 the jury was instructed that if the plaintiff was negligent in any respect, and 'such negligence was the proximate cause of the accident, or contributed thereto in the slightest decree,' a verdict should be returned for the defendant.
'Of course, it is fundamental that contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff will not bar his recovery unless such negligence is a proximate or direct cause of the injury. * * *
...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Maslankowski v. Beam
...v. Petersen, 276 Ala. 478, 163 So.2d 635 (1964); Mobile City Lines, Inc. v. Holman, 273 Ala. 371, 141 So.2d 180 (1962); Terry v. Nelms, 256 Ala. 291, 54 So.2d 282 (1951). For a recent discussion of the omission of 'proximate cause' from a directing charge see Shepherd v. Gardner Wholesale, ......
-
Crocker v. Lee
...negligence must be a concurring proximate cause of the injury and not merely a remote or antecedent cause or condition. Terry v. Nelms, 256 Ala. 291, 54 So.2d 282, and cases cited; Smith v. Crenshaw, 220 Ala. 510, 126 So. Charges 9 and 11 violated this rule in omitting 'proximate' and the c......
-
Gilmer v. Salter
...The plaintiff argues that the charge omits the word 'proximate' and the giving of it constituted error to reverse, citing Terry v. Nelms, 256 Ala. 291, 54 So.2d 282, and Crocker v. Lee, 261 Ala. 439, 74 So.2d 429. These two cases hold that to be a defense the plaintiff's contributory neglig......
-
Shepherd v. Gardner Wholesale, Inc.
...that is, it fails to hypothesize the plaintiff's negligence as proximately contributing to her alleged injuries. In Terry v. Nelms, 256 Ala. 291, 293, 54 So.2d 282, 284, where numerous supporting authorities are cited, we said: 'The consistent holding of this court has been that error to re......