Wyrick v. Ballard & Ballard Co Inc
| Decision Date | 03 May 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 450.,450. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | WYRICK . v. BALLARD & BALLARD CO, Inc. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Wake County; W. C. Harris, Judge.
Wrongful death action by Mrs. Elma S. Wyrick, administratrix of the estate of Glenn Wyrick, deceased, against Ballard & Ballard Company, Inc. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
W. L. Spencer and Douglass & Douglass, all of Raleigh, for plaintiff, appellant.
Joyner & Yarborough, of Raleigh, for defendant, appellee.
This is an action for the wrongful death of the plaintiff's intestate resulting from a collision between a motor truck owned by the defendant and operated by its employee in the course of his employment and a Plymouth Coupe driven by the plaintiff's intestate.
It is admitted that the collision took place on 17 October, 1940, between Durham and Raleigh while the truck was being driven westward on Highway 70-A and the coupe was being driven eastward on said highway, and that as a result of the collision the plaintiff's intestate was killed.
It is alleged in the complaint, inter alia, that the defendant's truck was being "operated on the left-hand side of the highway, contrary to the law provided therefor and in violation of Section 2621(293-5 [sections 2621(293), to 2621(295)] of the North Carolina Code". G.S. §§ 20-146, to 20-148.
No eyewitnesses to the collision were introduced. The driver of the coupe, the intestate, was dead, and the driver of the truck was not called. Hence it was necessary to determine the case upon evidence which was largely circumstantial in its nature. The testimony of the plaintiff's witness, T. R. Stone, was to the effect that he was driving eastward toward Raleigh, in the same direction as the intestate was driving, and that he came upon the scene of the collision very soon after it happened, that the deceased was still under the wreckage when he arrived and was taken out and he took the deceased to the hospital; that the truck was headed westward toward Durham and the automobile was headed eastward toward Raleigh, that Wyrick's (intestate's) automobile was on the right side of the highway (the south side), and the front of the truck was resting on the front of the automobile; that the truck was loaded with flour and flour was on Wyrick's side of the highway and a lot of glass and dry mud from the two vehicles were also on the south side of the highway; that there were tire marks on the south side of the highway leading up to the truck and extending back toward Raleigh 40 or 50 feet on the same side of the highway, one of the marks of the dual wheels of the truck was on the center line and one was a little over the center line; the road was straight; that while the Plymouth Coupe was on its right side, the south side of the highway, the front of the truck was on top of the coupe and the rearof the truck was on the north side of the highway, the truck being across the center line.
When the plaintiff had introduced her evidence and rested her case the...
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...which reasonably warrant the inference that the decedent was killed by the actionable negligence of the defendant. Wyrick v. Ballard Co., Inc., 224 N.C. 301, 29 S.E.2d 900; Corum v. R. J. Tobacco Co., 205 N.C. 213, 171 S.E. 78; Lynch v. Carolina Telephone Co., 204 N.C. 252, 167 S.E. 847. An......
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Sowers v. Marley, 669
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