Warren v. Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Co.
Warren v. Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
(After stating the foregoing facts.) Error is assigned in special ground 1 of the motion for a new trial on the following charge of the court: “I charge you that accident means an event which takes place without one’s foresight or expectation, an event which proceeds from an unknown cause and therefore, not expected. Now, should you find the plaintiff’s injuries resulted from an accident, then the plaintiff can not recover.” There is no contention that the above excerpt from the charge is not correct as an abstract principle of law, but plaintiff in error contends that there was not the slightest evidence that the injury to the plaintiff was the result of an accident, nor any evidence from which any reasonable inference of an accident could be drawn, and that the charge was confusing, misleading, and distracting to the jury. The defendant had pleaded accident and, according to James Early, the only eyewitness other than plaintiff in so far as is indicated by the record, the gangboard was good and did not buckle, witness did not swing the truck too hard, and plaintiff, by some means or another, missed the gang-
In special grounds 2 and 4 of the motion error is assigned on the following charge: “I charge you that though the plaintiff may have fallen from the gangboard between the platform and the car, this would not authorize you, nothing more appearing, to presume that the defendant was negligent in any manner”; and in special grounds 3 and 5 of the motion error is assigned on the charge: “I charge you that though you find the board being used by the plaintiff buckled, that fact alone without more appearing, would not authorize you to find for the plaintiff”; and in special ground 6 of the motion error is assigned on the above two excerpts of the charge combined. The charge excepted to in these grounds of the motion pointed out to the jury that the mere proof of certain acts, standing alone, would not constitute negligence on the part of the defendant, and inferentially pointed out that there must be a causal connection between certain events and the injuries on which the action is based in order for such events to constitute actionable negligence. Immediately following the ex
The verdict for the defendant was authorized by the evidence, no error of law appears, and the court did not err in overruling the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.
Judgment affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- WARREN v. GEORGIA SOUTHERN & FLORIDA RAILWAY COMPANY
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published