Opinion
No. AA-171.
June 30, 1976. Rehearing Denied August 9, 1976.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Escambia County, Kirke M. Beall, J.
Robert P. Gaines of Beggs Lane, Pensacola, for appellants.
Roderic G. Magie, Joe J. Harrell of Harrell, Wiltshire, Stone Swearingen, James E. Hertz, Pensacola, for appellee.
Appellants, defendants in the trial court, seek reversal of an adverse judgment for damages following a directed verdict on the issues of liability in an action resulting from an automobile accident.
On a stormy September afternoon one Galit, while traveling in a southerly direction in the western-most lane of a curved four-lane road with no median strip, applied his brakes whereupon his vehicle skidded across the other three lanes of the road and into a slight ravine at the northeasterly approach to a bridge which enters the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. Observing Galit's vehicle, Mrs. Shack, who was driving a vehicle behind the Galit vehicle in the eastern-most southbound lane of the same road brought her vehicle to a complete stop. Mrs. Shack testified that she brought her vehicle to a complete stop in her lane of traffic while Nagelin testified that her automobile was straddling the line dividing the two southbound lanes. Appellee Fisher was a passenger in the Shack vehicle at the time of the above mentioned events. Nagelin was driving his automobile in a southerly direction behind Mrs. Shack's vehicle. He testified that he attempted to stop but that his car went into a skid, striking the stopped Shack vehicle. The relative locations of the vehicles, distances and times varied according to the several witnesses who testified.
The law is so well-settled as to render citations of authority superfluous that contested issues of material fact are to be resolved by the trier of the fact, in this case the jury.
REVERSED.
BOYER, C.J., RAWLS, J., and WARREN, LAMAR, Associate Judge, concur.