Banachowski v. Saunders
| Decision Date | 29 January 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 3088.,3088. |
| Citation | 187 A.2d 891 |
| Parties | H. J. BANACHOWSKI, t/a National Parking Service, Appellant, v. Richard SAUNDERS, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
John C. Keating, Bethesda, Md., for appellant.
Before HOOD, Chief Judge, and QUINN and MYERS, Associate Judges.
This is an appeal by a parking lot operator from a judgment holding him liable for the destruction of a 1960 automobile left in his custody.
Appellee testified that he parked his automobile on appellant's lot, left the keys in the ignition, and told the attendant that he would reclaim it late in the evening or on the following day. For a number of months appellee had parked his automobile daily on the lot. Occasionally, he would reclaim it either late in the evening or the next day. When he did so, appellant's attendant would remove the key from the ignition and hide it, since no attendant was on duty in the evening, although the sign above the entrance to the lot announced On this occasion before appellee reclaimed his automobile, it was found by the police in the early hours of the morning some blocks from the lot smashed against a tree stump, the key in the ignition.
The attendant testified that appellee did not leave the key in the car with him when he parked it in the morning; that he closed the lot at 6:45 P.M., and that he saw appellee's automobile standing alone on the lot at 7:45 P.M. Appellant argues that this testimony conclusively established that he had fully discharged his duties as bailee since there was no testimony as to when or by whom the automobile was removed from the lot, and appellee made no showing that the automobile was not on the lot at closing time. The jury was instructed that appellee was entitled to a presumption of negligence and appellant asserts that it was error to do so.
We think the court's instruction was proper. Proof of the bailment and subsequent destruction establishes a prima facie case and raises a presumption or inference of negligence. Such inference, while it does not shift the ultimate burden of proof, serves to place the burden of going forward with the evidence upon the defendant; the evidence so adduced by the defendant may serve to vitiate the inference as a controlling rule of law while not destroying its probative weight as an inference of fact.1
It is true that the...
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Garlock v. Multiple Parking Services, Inc.
...chap. 55, sec. 1.02, et seq.; 3 Abbott's Digest 2d, Bailment, sec. 1, 5, 11, & 14, et seq.; 131 A.L.R. 1175; Banachowski v. Saunders, D.C.App., 187 A.2d 891, 7 A.L.R.3d 924; and 23 A McKinney's N.Y.Obligations Law, sec. 5-325). Traditionally, great emphasis was placed on whether the relatio......
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