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94 Ga. App. 329

94 S.E.2d 502

Chadwick v. Stewart

Court of Appeals of Georgia

Decided September 20, 1956

Court of Appeals of Georgia · decided 1956-09-20

Relies on O'Dowd v. Newnham · 88 Ga. App. 533 - Gay v. Healan · Culpepper v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1956-09-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently November 2015

11 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

1101956196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Quillian, J.

¶1 1. One who drives an automobile in which another rides over a highway of the State at approximately 85 miles per hour, and does not have the vehicle under proper control, and fails to keep a look-out ahead, does not exercise ordinary care for the safety of the passenger. O’Dowd v. Newnham, 13 Ga. App. 220 (80 S. E. 36); Jordan v. Lee, 51 Ga. App. 99 (179 S. E. 739); Moore v. Bryan, 52 Ga. App. 272, 283 (183 S.E. 117).

¶2 2. A deputy sheriff transporting a prisoner in his custody from one place to another owes the prisoner the duty to exercise ordinary care while driving the vehicle in which the prisoner is required to ride. While transporting a prisoner in an automobile, a deputy sheriff has dominion over the prisoner and control of the vehicle. No duty devolves upon the prisoner to suggest or direct the manner in which the officer drives. For a similar holding, see Chattahoochee Brick Co. v. Braswell, 92 Ga. 631 (18 S. E. 1015).

¶3 3. A sheriff is liable for the negligent acts of his deputy when such acts are done virtute officii or colore officii. Code § 24-201; Culpepper v. United States Fidelity &c. Co., 199 Ga. 56 (33 S. E. 2d 168). In the present case, the deputy was transporting a prisoner who was injured due to the alleged negligent acts of the deputy. This was clearly an act done colore officii. The petition having set forth a cause of action against the deputy, it likewise set forth a cause of action against the sheriff who directed the deputy to transport the prisoner. Culpepper v. United States Fidelity &c. Co., supra; Gay v. Healan, 88 Ga. App. 533, 534 (77 S. E. 2d *330 47), and others which hold the sheriff was not liable for the negligent acts of his deputy, are distinguishable from the case at bar because in those cases the injury was done to a person who was in no way connected with the official act of the deputy.

Decided September 20, 1956. D. L. Lomenick, Jr., B. L. Denman, for plaintiff in error. Bobby Lee Cook, contra.

¶4 4. The trial judge erred in sustaining the general demurrers as to both defendants.

¶5 Judgment reversed.

Felton, C. J., and Nichols, J., concur.
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