Jacob Thomas Cook Et Al v. Jefferson County, Tennessee Et Al

Court Description: Authoring Judge: Judge Thomas R. Frierson, II
Trial Court Judge: Judge James L. Gass

This case involves an accident between a motor vehicle and a school bus that occurred on
Highway 11E on a foggy December morning in Jefferson County, Tennessee. The
automobile was traveling eastbound on Highway 11E when it struck the bus, which was
stopped across the two eastbound lanes of Highway 11E positioned to make a left turn onto
the westbound lanes. The driver of the car, Jacob Cook, sustained serious injuries as a
result of the impact. Mr. Cook, together with his grandfather, Rickey Macari, who owned
the vehicle, brought an action in tort seeking damages against Jefferson County, the
Jefferson County Board of Education, and the driver of the school bus, Harold Moody. In
their complaint, Mr. Cook and Mr. Macari alleged that Mr. Moody's negligence in stopping
the school bus across the eastbound lanes was the proximate cause of Mr. Cook's injuries.
The defendants filed a counterclaim alleging that Mr. Cook's negligence, and not Mr.
Moody's, was the proximate cause of the accident because Mr. Cook had been speeding
when the accident occurred. During a bench trial, the defendants' expert witness, an
accident reconstructionist, opined that Mr. Cook had been speeding at the time of the
accident but that Mr. Cook's car would have collided with the stopped school bus even had
he been following the speed limit. At the conclusion of the bench trial, the trial court found
that Mr. Cook was indeed speeding at the time of the accident, but that Mr. Moody should
not have attempted to turn left across the eastbound lanes given the traffic and weather
conditions. Accordingly, the trial court determined that Mr. Moody's actions were the
proximate cause of Mr. Cook's injuries and allocated 80% of the fault for the accident to
Mr. Moody, with 20% of the fault assigned to Mr. Cook. The defendants timely appealed.
Discerning no reversible error, we affirm the trial court's judgment with one modification:
we direct the trial court to dismiss Jefferson County as a defendant because the Jefferson
County Board of Education, as the owner of the school bus, is undisputedly the proper
defendant in this action.