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Williams v. Chick-fil-A7/6/2005
cial part of a joint venture. See Rossi v. Oxley, 269 Ga. 82, 83 (1), (2) (495 SE2d 39) (1998) (holding that there was no joint venture as a matter of law between physicians who agreed to be "on-call" for one another at a hospital in the absence of evidence that the physicians controlled each other's professional judgment in the treatment of patients). For a joint venture to exist, " here must be not only a joint interest in the purpose of the enterprise . . . but also a right, express or implied, to direct and control the conduct of one another in the activity causing the injury (in this case the operation of the automobile)." (Citations omitted.) Cullen v. Timm, 184 Ga. App. 80, 82 (1) (360 SE2d 745) (1987). "The general principles of agency law apply where defendants are joint venturers." (Citations omitted.) Kissun v. Humana, 267 Ga. at 420.
Generally, when a plaintiff has sued a business for injuries resulting from a third party's negligence, Georgia's courts have held that the business is entitled to judgment as a matter of law when there is no evidence that the business exercised control over the tortfeasor or his employer. Our courts have also held that the business is entitled to judgment as a matter of law when there is no evidence that the tortfeasor was acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the negligence. Absent such evidence, the fact that the business might have received some incidental advertising benefit from signs on a vehicle negligently driven by the tortfeasor would not authorize a jury to find the business liable for the driver's negligence.
In this case, the evidence showed that Brown operated the Chick-fil-A restaurant as an independent contractor, and there was no evidence to show that the corporation had the authority to control the operation of either the restaurant or the truck. Further, the undisputed evidence showed that, at the time of Brown's collision with Garnett, Brown was operating the truck on a purely personal mission. Under such circumstances, the trial court did not err in concluding as a matter of law that Brown and the corporation were not engaged in a joint venture or other agency relationship with regard to the events that resulted in Garnett's injuries. See cases cited in footnotes 2, 3, and 4, supra.
Judgment affirmed. Smith, P. J., and Adams, J., concur.
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