Corinti v. Wittkopp

• Decision Date: 12 January 1959
• Docket Number: No. 33,33
• Citation: 93 N.W.2d 906,355 Mich. 170
• Parties: Joseph CORINTI, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Albert WITTKOPP and Dolly Wittkopp, Defendants and Appellees.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 906

93 N.W.2d 906

355 Mich. 170

Joseph CORINTI, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Albert WITTKOPP and Dolly Wittkopp, Defendants and Appellees.

No. 33.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Jan. 12, 1959.

Poppen, Street & Sorensen, by Harold M. Street, Muskegon, for appellant.

Engle & Engel, by Albert J. Engel, Jr., Muskegon, for appellees.

Before the Entire Bench.

EDWARDS, Justice.

The city of Muskegon passed an ordinance in 1948 making it unlawful to leave the ignition key in an automobile parked upon a public street. In this case plaintiff claims that defendants' violation of that ordinance resulted in defendants' automobile doing considerable damage to plaintiff's grape arbor, while it was being driven by a thief seeking to escape a police chase.

The detailed facts are set out thus in plaintiff's declaration which the circuit judge dismissed on motion, thus presenting to us on plaintiff's appeal a question which has not heretofore been decided in this State:

'That plaintiff is informed and believes and alleges the truth to be that on the evening of August 21, 1957, the defendants left their said automobile parked in the 1600 block on Elwood street, a public street, in the city of Muskegon, and did neglect to remove the ignition key therefrom, contrary to the provision of section 54 of the ordinances of the city of Muskegon then and there in force, which read as follows:

"Unattended Motor Vehicles

"No person having control or charge of a motor vehicle shall allow such vehicle to stand on any roadway unattended without first effectively setting the brakes thereon and stopping the motor of said vehicle, and when standing upon any grade without turning the front wheels of such vehicle to the curb or side of the roadway.

"Every person parking a motor vehicle in any public street or alley in the city of Muskegon shall remove and take with him the key or keys to the ignition thereof and it shall be unlawful for any person to so fail to remove such key or keys. (as amended April 13, 1948.)

"In connection with the above, it shall be presumed that the owner of the motor vehicle was the operator thereof unless and until said owner shall, by competent evidence, establish that some other person was on said occasion, operating said motor vehicle. (as amended April 13, 1948.)'

'That the thing the aforesaid ordinance was designed to prevent occurred. During the evening of August 21, 1957, or the early hours of the morning of August 22, 1957, a juvenile by the name of Donald Fowler was tempted to and did unlawfully take and drive the said automobile away by turning the ignition key which defendants had negligently left therein, starting the engine and driving away; that the said Donald Fowler was a reckless and dangerous driver who had previously been charged and convicted of a number of traffic offenses; that some time after the said Donald Fowler had taken the car, he attracted the attention of the police who attempted to stop him; that in an effort to elude the police, the said Donald Fowler drove the car in a reckless and negligent manner in a westerly direction on Marquette avenue at speeds upwards of 80 miles per hour.

'That as the said Donald Fowler approached the intersection of Marquette avenue and Agnes street in the city of Muskegon, he lost control of the vehicle, veered first to the right and then across Marquette to the left, where the vehicle crashed through plaintiff's fence and into plaintiff's grape arbor, uprooting a large number of plaintiff's grape vines and causing the damage complained of herein.'

At oral argument before this Court counsel for both parties agreed that a proper construction of the declaration would hold that the accident and damage did not occur in the act of theft or in immediate pursuit thereafter. It should also be added that the parties stipulated for purposes of the motion to dismiss that the person alleged to have stolen the automobile was a complete stranger to defendants, and that the sole person responsible for leaving the keys in the automobile was defendant Dolly Wittkopp, the wife of the owner.

The trial judge's opinion indicates that plaintiff conceded that the case should be dismissed as to Albert Wittkopp. He then discussed whether or not the declaration stated a case of actionable negligence against the remaining defendant, finally concluding that the damage which resulted from the thief's driving was not a foreseeable result of defendant's violation of the ordinance, and granted the motion to dismiss.

Although we have no Michigan precedent upon the specific question submitted by this case, there have been many decisions in other jurisdictions construing similar ordinances or statutes in the light of somewhat similar fact situations. Many of these are gathered in a 1957 A.L.R. annotation, 51 A.L.R.2d 633, Automobile--Started by Stranger, Thieves, § 17, p. 622. ¹

In the absence of statute or ordinance, it is generally held that a driver has no duty to protect others from the actions of thieves who steal his car with the use of the driver's own keys. Kiste v. Red Cab, Inc., 122 Ind.App. 587, 106 N.W.2d 395; Richards v. Stanley, 43 Cal.2d 60, 271 P.2d 23; Saracco v. Lyttle, 11 N.J.Super. 254, 78 A.2d 288; Castay v. Katz & Besthoff, La.App., 148 So. 76. Contra: Schaff v. R. W. Claxton, Inc., 79 U.S.App.D.c. 207, 144 F.2d 532.

Even where there was a statute or ordinance prohibiting leaving the key in the ignition, most State courts have held that theft of an automobile left with key in ignition by the driver severed, as a matter of law, any possible causal relation between the violation of the ordinance or statute and the ultimate damage occasioned by the thief. Anderson v. Theisen, 231 Minn. 369, 43 N.W.2d 272; Slater v. T. C. Baker Co., 261 Mass. 424, 158 N.E. 778; Gower v. Lamb, Mo.App., 282 S.W.2d 867; Lotito v. Kyriacus, 272 App.Div. 635, 74 N.Y.S.2d 599, ...