Brown v. Merlo

Citation506 P.2d 212,8 Cal.3d 855,106 Cal.Rptr. 388
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court (California)
Decision Date20 February 1973
Parties, 506 P.2d 212, 66 A.L.R.3d 505 Ralph L. BROWN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Guiseppe Beppino MERLO, Defendant and Respondent. Sac. 7947. In Bank

Watt & Leverenz and Reginald M. Watt, Chico, for plaintiff and appellant.

Robert E. Cartwright, San Francisco, Edward I. Pollock, Theodore A. Horn, Los Angeles, Marvin E. Lewis, San Francisco, William H. Lally, Sacramento, Joseph W. Cotchett, San Mateo, Herbert Hafif, Claremont, David Daar, Los Angeles, and Leonard Sacks, Pico Rivera, as amici curiae on behalf of plaintiff and appellant.

A. John Merlo, Chico, Ann R. Houghton, Jordan N. Peckham, Chico, and Chris Gasparich, Oakland, for defendant and respondent.

TOBRINER, Justice.

Section 17158 of the Vehicle Code, California's 'automobile guest statute,' 1 deprives an injured automobile guest of any recovery for the careless driving of his host unless the injury results from the driver's willful misconduct or intoxication. Thus, in those cases which the statute reaches, the provision withdraws from automobile 'guests,' i.e., passengers who give no compensation for their ride, the protection against negligently inflicted injuries which California law generally affords to all others. Plaintiff, an automobile guest who has been foreclosed by this statute from recovery for injuries caused by defendant's alleged negligence, contends that the statute conflicts with the constitutional guarantee of 'equal protection of the laws' embodied in our state (Cal.Const., art. 1, §§ 11, 21) and federal (U.S.Const., 14th Amend.) Constitutions.

For the reasons discussed below, we have concluded that plaintiff's constitutional attack must be sustained. As we shall explain, two distinct justifications--(1) the protection of hospitality and (2) the elimination of collusive lawsuits--have traditionally been proffered to support the guest statute's operation. Upon analysis, however, neither justification constitutes a rational basis for the differential treatment actually accorded by the statute's classification scheme. As we discuss more fully below, the 'protection of hospitality' rationale exhibits a number of fatal defects: first, this rationale fails to explain why the statute accords differential treatment to Automobile guests as distinguished from all other guests or, indeed, all other recipients of hospitality or generosity; second, it fails to explain, in light of recent developments in comparable legal doctrines, how such an interest in protecting hospitality can rationally justify the withdrawal of legal protection from guests; and finally, it completely ignores the prevalence of liability insurance coverage today, a factual development which largely undermines any rational connection between the prevention of suits and the protection of hospitality.

The 'prevention of collusion' rationale is similarly inadequate to justify, in equal protection terms, the elimination of all automobile guests' right to recover for negligence. Although the guest statute may prevent some collusive suits connived by automobile drivers and their passengers to defraud insurers, the enactment's classification scheme is far too gross and overinclusive to be justified by this end since the statute bars the great majority of valid suits along with fraudulent claims. On numerous occasions in the recent past this court has held similar 'anti-collusion' justifications insufficient to support significantly narrower classification schemes; the wholesale elimination of all guests' causes of action for negligence does not treat similarly situated persons equally, but instead improperly discriminates against guests on the basis of a factor which bears no significant relation to actual collusion.

Finally, the irrationality of the guest statute's classifications is aggravated by a series of limiting statutory 'loopholes,' which fortuitously stay the operation of the statute under a variety of diverse, illogical circumstances. Although in specific cases such statutory quirks may work to ameliorate the harsh consequences of the general provision, these numerous exceptions when viewed in toto produce and absurd and illogical pattern which completely drains the statute of any rationality it might conceivably claim. In light of all these circumstances, we have concluded that the automobile guest statute must succumb to the constitutional demand of rationality imposed by our state and federal Constitutions.

Before beginning our analysis of plaintiff's constitutional claim, we briefly review the facts which gave rise to the instant litigation. On October 15, 1967, defendant and plaintiff were riding in a jeep operated by defendant on a public highway in Butte County. The jeep crossed the center line of the highway and collided with an embankment on the opposite side of the road; plaintiff sustained serious physical injuries to his head, body and limbs as a result of this accident.

Thereafter, plaintiff brought an action against defendant, alleging both willful misconduct and negligence. Defendant propounded a series of interrogatories to plaintiff in an attempt to determine the grounds upon which plaintiff relied to exempt his cause of action in negligence from the bar of the guest statute. In response to these interrogatories, plaintiff asserted, 'We do not contend that Mr. Brown was a passenger as distinguished from a guest under the guest statute. Our negligence cause of action is based upon our contention that the guest statute is an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the law.'

To defendant's motion for summary judgment on the negligence cause plaintiff responded by a repetition of his contention that the guest statute violated constitutional guarantees. The trial court granted defendant's motion on the cause of action in negligence; the cause of action for willful misconduct went to a jury, which returned a verdict in defendant's favor. Plaintiff appeals only from the summary judgment against his cause of action in negligence, asserting that the guest statute unconstitutionally denies him as a guest the recovery he would be entitled to as a paying passenger. Because plaintiff falls squarely within the class of persons to whom the guest statute denies recovery for simple negligence, we are compelled to resolve the constitutional issue on this appeal.

1. Under our state and federal 'equal protection' provisions a statute may single out a class for distinctive treatment only if such classification bears a rational relation to the purposes of the legislation.

Article 1, sections 11 and 21 of the California Constitution guarantee to every person that '(a)ll laws of a general application shall have a uniform operation' and that '(no) citizen, or class of citizens, (shall) be granted privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not be granted to all citizens'; the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution frames a similar commitment, mandating that no state may 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' This principle of 'equal protection' preserved by both state and federal Constitutions, of course, 'does not preclude the state from drawing any distinctions between different groups of individuals' (In re King (1970) 3 Cal.3d 226, 232, 90 Cal.Rptr. 15, 19, 474 P.2d 983, 987), but it does require that, at a minimum, 'persons similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purpose of the law receive like treatment.' (Purdy & Fitzpatrick v. State of California (1969) 71 Cal.2d 566, 578, 79 Cal.Rptr. 77, 85, 456 P.2d 645, 653; Darcy v. Mayor etc. of San Jose (1894) 104 Cal. 642, 645--646, 38 P. 500.)

As the United States Supreme Court recently phrased the federal constitutional standard: 'The Equal Protection Clause . . . den(ies) to States the power to legislate tht different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification 'must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike. " (Reed v. Reed (1971) 404 U.S. 71, 75--76, 92 S.Ct. 251, 254, 30 L.Ed.2d 225, quoting Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia (1920) 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 64 L.Ed. 989 (emphasis added); see also Esenstadt v. Baird (1972) 405 U.S. 438, 446--447, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349; Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. (1972) 406 U.S. 164, 173, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 31 L.Ed. 768.) Thus, when a statute provides that one class shall receive different treatment than another, our constitutional provisions demand more 'than nondiscriminatory application within the class . . . establish(ed) . . . (They) also (impose) a requirement of some rationality in the nature of the class singled out.' (Rinaldi v. Yeager (1966) 384 U.S. 305, 308--309, 86 S.Ct. 1497, 1499, 16 L.Ed.2d 577; Hayes v. Superior Court (1971) 6 Cal.3d 216, 223, 98 Cal.Rptr. 449, 490 P.2d 1137.) 2

In determining the scope of the class singled out for special burdens or benefits, a court cannot confine its view to the terms of the specific statute under attack, but must judge the enactment's operation against the background of other legislative, administrative and judicial directives which govern the legal rights of similarly situated persons. As the United States Supreme Court recognized long ago: 'The question of constitutional validity is not to be determined by artificial standards (confining review 'within the four corners' of a statute.) What is required is that state action, whether through one agency or another, or through one enactment or more than one, shall be consistent with the restrictions of the Federal Constitution.' (Gregg Dyeing Co. v. Query (1932) 286 U.S. 472, 480, 52...

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