# Stone v. Bethea

> Supreme Court of South Carolina · April 29, 1968 · 251 S.C. 157

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9618767

## Case

- **Full name:** Carl Hall STONE, Appellant, v. Major BETHEA, Respondent
- **Court:** Supreme Court of South Carolina
- **Decided:** April 29, 1968
- **Citations:** 251 S.C. 157; 161 S.E.2d 171; 1968 S.C. LEXIS 145
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Bussey
- **Judges:** Moss, Lewis, Brailsford, Littlejohn, Bussey
- **Cited by:** 44 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9618767

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting, when it appears one’s negligence merely brought about a condition of affairs, or a situation in which another and entirely independent and efficient agency intervenes to cause the injury, the latter is to be deemed the direct or proximate cause, and the former only the…
- affirming the grant of a directed verdict based on the absence of proximate cause as a matter of law because, inter alia , the intervening criminal act occurred in a low-crime area where it was unforeseeable the crime would occur

## Opinion text

Bussey, Justice
(concurring).
While I agree with the result reached in the opinion of the Chief Justice, I would affirm the judgment of the lower court pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 4, Sec. 8, on the simple ground that there is, in my view, no evidence contained in the record of any actionable negligence on the part of the respondent. There being no. proof of any negligence, it is unnecessary to consider any issue of proximate cause or intervening or superseding cause. There being no evidence whatever that Sec. 46-491 was violated by the re *165 spondent, the court, in my view, should refrain from passing on the effect of any violation thereof, particularly since such is a question of novel impression in this state. A review of authorities from many other jurisdictions will show that there is a decided split of authority as to whether, and under what circumstances, a violation of similar statutes may, or may not, be held a proximate cause of injuries or damages inflicted by an unlocked motor vehicle following its removal by a thief, drunk or other intermeddler. See generally 51 A. L. R. (2d) 633; 91 A. L. R. (2d) 1326; Prosser on Torts, (3d) Ed. 323, Sec. 51.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9618767. Public record. Not legal advice.