Holman v. Ferrell
Holman v. Ferrell
Opinion of the Court
This wrongful death action arose from an automobile collision that occurred on the causeway between Brunswick and St. Simons
To win summary judgment, the moving party must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law.
The evidence showed that, on the night of October 4,1996, Lang-ford and two passengers were traveling westbound on the causeway in a Honda. Pitts and two passengers were traveling in the same direction in a Toyota. The occupants of the respective cars did not know each other and were not traveling to the same destination.
Langford testified that, shortly after he entered the causeway, Pitts passed him at a rapid rate of speed, and he sped up to pass her. He testified that the two cars “kept leaving each other” and explained that he was “just messing around.” Langford also testified that he was driving between 50 and 70 mph, that Pitts was keeping up with him, and that both cars changed lanes multiple times. The speed limit on the causeway for westbound traffic is 50 mph.
Pitts testified that after Langford passed her, she accelerated and tried to pull up alongside him because she thought his car’s occupants might be friends of hers, but Langford “cut me off.” She testified that after this happened several more times, she concluded that the driver was not a friend, and that he might be drunk, so she slowed down.
At some point, Langford changed lanes quickly and his car spun out of control, crossed into the eastbound lanes of traffic, and collided with Holman’s car. Pitts swerved to avoid flying debris and Coleman’s body, which had been thrown from Langford’s car. Pitts’s car
George Carswell, an accident investigator with the Brunswick Police Department, concluded that Langford and Pitts “were traveling at a high rate of speed trying to pass each other and changing lanes to keep each other from passing each other.” According to Cars-well, Pitts’s car played a causal role in the collision.
In her complaint, Ms. Holman alleges that the passengers in the two cars “were engaged in a joint enterprise with the drivers of the vehicles, and all acted in concert in a reckless manner.” Accordingly, she asserts that the negligence of Langford and Pitts should be imputed to their passengers. The trial court granted summary judgment to all four passengers without opinion and later entered final judgment in their favor.
We have held that automobile passengers are not liable for the negligence of their drivers “solely by virtue of a common excursion in pursuance of joint interests.”
In this case, there is no evidence that any passenger in either Langford’s car or Pitts’s car attempted to exercise control over the operation of the respective vehicles. Nonetheless, Ms. Holman asserts that the passengers contributed to an atmosphere of “horse play” between the vehicles by, among other things, “waving back and forth.”
Pretermitting whether a passenger could be held liable for encouraging the driver to act recklessly,
Certainly, in the absence of any evidence that the passengers in either car attempted to exercise control over the operation of the vehicles or encouraged the drivers to engage in illegal activity, summary judgment in their favor was appropriate.
Judgment affirmed.
Ms. Holman sued Coleman’s father in his capacity as representative of his son’s estate.
Ms. Holman also sued Langford’s father and Pitts’s mother, but those claims are not at issue here.
OCGA § 9-11-56 (c); Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (405 SE2d 474) (1991).
Touchton v. Amway Corp., 247 Ga. App. 269, 270 (543 SE2d 782) (2000).
Keaton v. Fenton, 147 Ga. App. 579 (249 SE2d 629) (1978).
(Citations omitted.) Holland v. Boyett, 212 Ga. 458 (1) (93 SE2d 662) (1956).
Supra.
Id.; see also Adamson v. McEwen, 12 Ga. App. 508, 511 (77 SE 591) (1913) (person with “no control or management of the machine or of the driver” not liable for driver’s negligence); Neve v. Graves, 26 Ga. App. 378, 379 (106 SE 305) (1921) (passengers not hable for driver’s negligence simply because they purchased oil and gas for car).
Compare Cullen v. Timm, 184 Ga. App. 80, 81-82 (1) (360 SE2d 745) (1987) (passengers were not engaged in joint enterprise with driver who ran red light, even though they urged him to do so, because driver alone “held ultimate operational authority over the vehicle”) with Hood v. Evans, 106 Ga. App. 360, 362 (126 SE2d 898) (1962) (passenger in car competing in illegal drag race could be liable for resulting accident where he “ ‘gave the signal to start (the race) by holding his arm out the window and counted three and dropped his arm’”).
See Snell v. McCoy, 135 Ga. App. 832, 833 (2) (219 SE2d 482) (1975) (fact that passenger waved at police car that was pursuing the car in which he was riding did not show that passenger took part in “common design” or conspiracy to elude police).
181 Ga. App. 887-889 (1) (354 SE2d 434) (1987).
185 Ga. App. 453-455 (1) (364 SE2d 588) (1988).
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.