Carraway v. Revell

• Citation: 116 So.2d 16
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Florida
• Decision Date: 25 November 1959
• Parties: Royal CARRAWAY, Petitioner, v. Guy REVELL, individually and d/b/a Reveil Motor Company, and Associates Discount Corporation, an Indiana Corporation authorized to do business in the State of Florida, Respondents.

Page 16

116 So.2d 16

Royal CARRAWAY, Petitioner, v. Guy REVELL, individually and d/b/a Reveil Motor Company, and Associates Discount Corporation, an Indiana Corporation authorized to do business in the State of Florida, Respondents.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Nov. 25, 1959.

Donald O. Hartwell of Hall, Hartwell & Douglass, Tallahassee, for petitioner.

Keen, O'Kelley & Spitz, A. Frank O'Kelley and H. O. Pemberton, Tallahassee, for respondents.

DREW, Justice.

The petition for certiorari alleges a direct conflict between the questioned opinion of the District Court ¹ and that of this Court in Franklin v. State. ² Moreover, the question has been certified to this Court by the District Court as one of great public interest. ³

The deceased (the minor son of petitioner, plaintiff below) was riding as a guest passenger in an automobile owned by the respondent (defendant below) and operated by Fountain Bryant Cone, Jr., with his knowledge and consent. The case was tried without a jury and resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of respondent.

The trial judge denied plaintiff's motion for a new trial, assigning as his reason, among others, 'that gross negligence in a guest passenger civil action is the same in legal contemplation as culpable negligence in a manslaughter case and that, in order to sustain a finding of liability in a guest passenger case, there must be that degree of negligence which would be sufficient to support a manslaughter conviction when there is a death involved.' The trial judge recited the only distinction between the consideration that a court should give to an issue involving gross negligence in a civil action and culpable negligence in a criminal case is the quantum of proof, obviously meaning that in the former the proof must be by a preponderance of the evidence, while in the latter it must be beyond a reasonable doubt.

The district court approved the action of the trial court in an exhaustive opinion. The conclusion reached by the district court may be summarized in the following language taken from the last two paragraphs of the opinion:

'From the foregoing analysis we are of the opinion that the pyramiding progression of case law emanating from the diverse factual situations which are inherent in this field of the law has established that the character of negligence necessary to sustain a conviction for manslaughter is the same as that required to sustain a recovery for punitive damages, or damages resulting from gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct under the guest statute. * * *

'* * * We have carefully reviewed the evidence but agree with the trial judge that it falls short of sustaining the burden of proof within the contemplation of the applicable provisions of law.' (Emphasis suplied.)

The correctness of the holding of the trial court and the district court is, therefore, squarely presented for our consideration. While a direct conflict is alleged, we are not restricted to a determination of that one proposition. The certification of the case to us as one of great public interest, extends our scope of review to a determination of whether the opinion and judgment of the district court is correct. ⁴

It has been said that the concept of dividing negligence in degrees (or perhaps, more appropriately, kinds) by our courts has resulted in one of the most controversial doctrines in Anglo-American jurisprudence. ⁵ In Bridges v. Speer, ⁶ we referred to this dilemma with the observations that the courts had encountered great difficulty in attempting to draw any clear and distinct line between simple and gross negligence and concluded 'Perhaps no rule can ever be devised which will definitely separate one from the other.' In that case we said that the great difficulty arose out of the fact that it related to different degrees of the same conduct. Different degrees of negligence are far easier to demonstrate than to define. ⁷ The same conduct, in different settings, could and does result in different degrees of liability. ⁸ This is so, not only in cases arising under the so-called guest statute, but in many other situations. For instance in the determination of the legal rights and duties arising between an owner and invitees, licensees and trespassers, for the same act or omission, an owner may be liable to an invitee but not to a licensee; ⁹ to a licensee but not to a trespasser. ¹⁰

In all of the examples and situations mentioned, the kinds of negligence have been discussed in their relation to liabilities created by the law for the redress of private wrongs, and, in which in its broadest aspect the public generally is not concerned. When we apply such degrees or kinds of negligence to those actions in which the public itself is concerned, we are, in fact, dealing with another and different concept in the field of negligence. ¹¹ We agree with the district court 'that the character of negligence necessary to sustain a conviction for manslaughter is the same as that required to sustain a recovery for punitive damages' but we do not agree with the remainder of the court's holding, viz.: 'or damages resulting from gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct under the guest statute.' This is too broad a leap.

There is a real affinity between the character (or kind or degree) of negligence necessary to recover punitive damages or to sustain or warrant a conviction of manslaughter. ¹² Both have, as a basic purpose, the punishment of the offender. The offender in a manslaughter action may be deprived of his liberty or property by the State while the offender in an action for that kind of negligence justifying the imposition of punitive damages is deprived of his property--not as compensation to the injured party but as punishment--ergo, both are punishment and partake of public wrongs, to a greater or less degree. ¹³ On the other hand, actions under the guest statute relate to purely private wrongs where the objective is to require the wrongdoer to compensate the injured party for the actual damages he sustains. In statutory manslaughter, the element of criminal intent (ordinarily an essential element of a crime) is supplanted by culpable negligence. ¹⁴ But there is no rational basis to hold that such conduct is a prerequisite to recovery under the guest statute. Nor do we agree with the district court that the sum of our previous opinions on this subject would--or any of them alone--logically justify this conclusion.

Petitioner argues, among other things, that the opinion of the district court is in direct conflict with the case of Franklin v. State, 1935, 120 Fla. 686, 163 So. 55, 56, which held:

"Gross negligence' and 'culpable negligence' are not necessarily synonymous, though culpable negligence might be gross negligence and gross negligence might be culpable negligence.'

The district court points out that research failed to reveal any decision subsequent to the adoption of the guest statute in which the above quoted principle had been followed or adhered to. A re-examination of many, although, of course, not all of the subsequent cases dealing with gross negligence (particularly as it is used and applied in the guest statute, F.S.A. § 320.59) does show that we have not used the exact language employed in the quoted case but we fail to find any support in these cases for the conclusion reached by the district court. While loose language may have been employed in some of these cases, we think it is easily demonstrable from many subsequent decisions that we have held that conduct can exist which is termed gross negligence which will not justify the imposition of punitive damages and that this conclusion necessarily means that 'gross negligence' and 'culpable negligence' are not necessarily synonymous. Culpable negligence in a criminal action must attain a degree which will warrant imposition of punitive damages in a civil action. Gross negligence, while it may be within the area of culpable negligence, such fact by no means proves that all gross negligence must be defined as culpable negligence. ¹⁵ The crime of manslaughter may exist without criminal intent when culpable negligence is substituted therefor but we cannot support the view that the term 'gross negligence' necessary to sustain a judgment under the guest statute must be that type of culpable negligence which has been substituted for the element of criminal intent in statutory manslaughter nor do we think the purpose and history of such legislation lends any support to that view. ¹⁶

In the many cases re-examined we have never held that culpable negligence and gross negligence were synonymous. We have repeatedly pointed out the distinction. We have used such expressions as 'gross negligence, not amounting to such wanton and reckless indifference to the rights of others as to be equivalent to an intentional violation of them will not warrant punitive damages.' ¹⁷ Moreover, we have distinctly held that gross negligence will not justify the imposition of punitive damages. ¹⁸ Having held, as we have pointed out, that 'gross negligence' and 'wilful and wanton misconduct' as used in the guest statute are synonymous, the conclusion is inevitable that an approval of the judgment of the circuit court and of the district court would mean that in all actions under the guest statute the complaining party, if successful, would necessarily be entitled to recover punitive as well as compensatory damages or, to put it another way, in every case under the guest statute unless the plaintiff could prove that he was entitled to punitive damages, he would be entitled to nothing.

It is obvious to us that the observation of the district court 'that the pyramiding progression of case law emanating from the diverse factual situations which are inherent in this filed of the law' extablished in its mind the conclusion which it reached. We think this observation and the conclusion resulted from a misinterpretation of ...