Town of Mount Dora v. Bryant, 1738
| Decision Date | 15 March 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 1738,1738 |
| Citation | 128 So.2d 4 |
| Parties | TOWN OF MOUNT DORA, a municipal corporation of Florida, Appellant, v. Ellen S. BRYANT, individually and as Executrix of the Estate of James S. Bryant, deceased, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Sanders, McEwan, Schwarz & Mims, Orlando, and Roy Christopher, Mount Dora, for appellant.
Green, Bryant & Simmons, Ocala, for appellee.
The appellant Town of Mount Dora, having suffered summary and final judgment as defendant below in an action for wrongful death, brings this appeal after entry of an order denying its motion for a new trial. The case arose out of a tragic collision between two motor vehicles, one of which was being pursued by a third vehicle driven by a traffic officer of the defendant municipality.
The pleadings and affidavits submitted on motions for summary judgment disclose no appreciable contradiction from a strictly factual standpoint. Vaughn Snell was an auxiliary policeman of the Town of Mount Dora. While on duty as a traffic patrolman on the night of November 29, 1957 he gave chase to an automobile driven by one Larry Gnann through the streets of Mount Dora at excessive speed. Snell was unable to overtake Gnann within the corporate limits of the town and, after signalling another patrol car for assistance, he proceeded to pursue Gnann into the country with the siren and red blinker light of the patrol car in continuous operation. At one point Snell fired four shots into the air in a further attempt to halt the speeding Gnann.
Gnann refused to stop and the chase became a protracted one covering approximately 16 miles within the same county. While driving at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, Gnann swerved from side to side across the width of the road, preventing Officer Snell from pulling alongside. In a further attempt to lose his pursuer Gnann intermittently turned off the headlights of his automobile for short periods of time. It was during one of these blackout periods that a pickup truck driven by James S. Bryant approached from the opposite direction of the pursued Gnann's automobile and the pursuing police cruiser then trailing about 500 feet to the rear. Gnann, travelling at that time on his left side of the road, suddenly turned on the headlights of his automobile and instantly collided head-on with the Bryant truck. Both Larry Gnann and James S. Bryant, the respective drivers and sole occupants of the colliding vehicles, were killed.
Thereafter the Town of Mount Dora was sued by Ellen S. Bryant, individually and as executrix of the estate of her deceased husband James S. Bryant, to recover damages for the wrongful death of the said James S. Bryant allegedly attributable to the defendant under the doctrine of respondeat superior. The complaint charged negligent and reckless pursuit by defendant's officer-employee as a proximate contributing cause of plaintiff's damages.
Following a denial of its motion to dismiss the complaint, the defendant municipality filed its answer denying that the pursuit in question was conducted by its officer in a negligent manner and asserting as affirmative defense contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff's decedent James S. Bryant. The plaintiff and defendant each moved for summary judgment and the motions were heard and argued on the pleadings and supporting affidavits of Officer Vaughn Snell, Deputy Sheriff Douglas Sewell and Paul McDonald, a resident of the community of Sorrento.
The summary proceedings developed the factual situation as above outlined except that Paul McDonald's affidavit stated that the defendant's police cruiser was following the fugitive automobile at a distance of approximately 20 feet when the two vehicles passed his place of residence. The parties appear to have made no specific issue as to whether or not Officer Snell had the right in the first instance to continue pursuit beyond the corporate limits of the town.
The then presiding judge, now deceased, denied defendant's motion for summary judgment but granted plaintiff's similar motion and entered summary judgment against the defendant municipality, holding it liable as a matter of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Jackson v. Olson
...v. City of Los Angeles, 91 Cal.App.2d 315, 205 P.2d 46 (1949); City of Miami v. Horne, 198 So.2d 10 (Fla.1967); Town of Mount Dora v. Bryant, 128 So.2d 4 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1961); Downs v. Camp, 113 Ill.App.2d 221, 252 N.E.2d 46 (1969); Thornton v. Shore, 233 Kan. 737, 666 P.2d 655 (1983); Ch......
-
Booth v. Mary Carter Paint Co.
...summary judgments in negligence cases, the issue of negligence being ordinarily for the determination of a jury. Town of Mt. Dora v. Bryant, Fla.App.1961, 128 So.2d 4. Doubt on issues of negligence, including such related issues as contributory negligence, should always be resolved in favor......
-
Smith v. Nieves
...Hutchins, 268 F.2d 69 (6 Cir.1959); Wrubel v. State of New York, 11 Misc.2d 878, 174 N.Y.S.2d 687 (Ct. Claims 1958); Town of Mt. Dora v. Bryant, 128 So.2d 4 (D.Ct.App.1961); Evanoff v. City of St. Petersburg, 186 So.2d 68 (D.Ct.App.1966), overruled, 226 So.2d 450 (Fla.D.Ct.App.1969); Horne ......
-
City of St. Petersburg v. Shannon
...the extent that it was being driven in pursuit of the fleeing vehicle. See Annotation, 83 A.L.R.2d 452. The case of Town of Mount Dora v. Bryant, Fla.App.1961, 128 So.2d 4, was in the latter category. However, this Court's decision there resulted only in reversal of a summary judgment for t......