Gray v. Schlapp
Gray v. Schlapp
Opinion of the Court
1. “When a court passes upon a motion for a nonsuit if decides only one question, that is, do the allegation and the proof correspond? In sustaining such a motion the court does not hold that the plaintiff is not entitled, under the law, to recover on the facts alleged; neither does the overruling of the motion decide that the plaintiff is entitled under the law to recover. The right to recover under the facts alleged is not involved in the decision of such a motion. If a plaintiff ‘proves his case as laid,’ he is entitled to prevail as against a nonsuit; but it by no means follows from this that he is entitled to recover on the facts ‘as laid.’” Kelly v. Strouse, 116 Ga. 872, 883 (43 S. E. 280). See also Flewellen v. Flewellen, 114 Ga. 403 (40 S. E. 301); Barge v. Robinson, 115 Ga. 41 (41 S. E. 258); McCandless v. Conley, 115 Ga. 48 (41 S. E. 256).
2. In the present case the plaintiff presented evidence to support the allegations of the petition; and" assuming but not deciding that the allegations made and proved were insufficient to support 'a verdict in his favor, they nevertheless were sufficient to withstand a motion for nonsuit. According-^, the judgment of the trial court granting the mo-lion for nonsuit must be reversed.
Judgment reversed.
The following allegations of the petition were denied by the defendants: On October 13, 1953, at approximately 5 o’clock p. m., the plaintiff returned to the place of business of the defendants, and was advised by an agent of the defendants that the repairs on his automobile had been completed, but they could not find anything wrong with the heater. On this day the defendants’ agent did not inform him of the condition of his brakes, namely, the absence of the pin from the foot brake. The proximate cause of the collision was the failure of the operation of the foot brakes on the plaintiff’s automobile. The failure of the brakes was proximately and directly caused by the defendants’ breach of their contract with the plaintiff; and if the pin had been placed in the arm of the brakes, the linkage would not have worked loose and the brakes would not have failed.
In further plea and answer, the defendants answered as follows : They advised the plaintiff that the pin had not been placed in the arm of the brakes, and that it could not be placed there unless a handicap brake which was on the automobile was removed; and that the plaintiff did not give them permission to remove the handicap brake.
The plaintiff later amended his petition by adding the following paragraph which was not answered by the defendants: “The aforesaid acts of the defendants were the sole proximate cause of the collision, and the plaintiff was free of negligence in the premises.”
On the trial of the case exhibits were introduced showing that the judgments obtained against the plaintiff by Kelly and Wray were paid in full. The plaintiff testified that the first time he knew that the foot-brake pedal was off the car was when he started to apply his brakes just before the accident at Eleventh and Gwinnett Streets when the traffic control light turned red. On October 13, 1953, after he had carried his automobile to the repair shop of the defendants and returned for it around 5:30 p. m., they advised him that his car was ready, and that they had fixed the hydramatic, brake, and the tank, and that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the heater. Ten days later, when he
At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s evidence, the defendants’ motion for a nonsuit was granted, and to this judgment the plaintiff excepted.
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