Curley v. General Valet Service, Inc., 5

• Citation: 270 Md. 248,311 A.2d 231
• Decision Date: 09 November 1973
• Docket Number: No. 5,5
• Parties: Thomas Edward CURLEY et al. v. GENERAL VALET SERVICE, INC.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

Page 248

270 Md. 248

311 A.2d 231

Thomas Edward CURLEY et al. v. GENERAL VALET SERVICE, INC.

No. 5.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Nov. 9, 1973.

George L. Clarke, Towson (George W. White, Jr., and Buckmaster, White, Mindel & Clarke, Towson, on the brief), for Charlotte E. Grahe et al., part of appellants; by Joseph I. Pines, Baltimore (Jerome J. Seidenman, Baltimore, on the brief), for Thomas Edward Curley, another appellant; (Paul Smelkinson, Baltimore, on the brief for James Newby et ux., and Sidney Schlachman, Baltimore, on the brief for Joseph Kraus et ux., other appellants).

Aubrey M. Daniel, III, Washington, D. C. (Williams, Connolly & Califano, Paul R. Connolly and William E. McDaniels, Washington, D. C., and Robert L. Karwacki and Miles & Stockbridge, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES and LEVINE, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

On Sunday, December 3, 1967, Alonzo Stevenson, while on personal business, drove a van leased by his employer, the appellee, General Valet Service, Inc. (General Valet) through a policeman's stop signal and a red light at Harford Road and North Avenue in Baltimore. The van collided with a fire truck, killing fireman James Grahe and injuring firemen Joseph Kraus and Thomas Curley. The fire truck then struck a car owned by James Newby causing personal injury to Newby and his wife, and property damage to both vehicles. Four actions arising out of this accident were consolidated for trial in the Superior Court of Baltimore City, and resulted in jury verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs, appellants herein, against Stevenson and General Valet. ¹ On appeal, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgments entered against General Valet. ² General Valet Serv. v. Curley, 16 Md.App. 453, 298 A.2d 190 (1973). We granted certiorari to review the question whether the Court of Special Appeals, in applying the doctrine of negligent entrustment, erred in holding that General Valet's motion for a directed verdict should have been granted on the ground that the evidence was legally insufficient to permit the jury to decide that General Valet's conceded entrustment of the van to Stevenson was negligent.

Judge Powers, in his opinion for the Court of Special Appeals, noted that the evidence introduced by the appellants at the trial bearing upon their allegations that General Valet was negligent in entrusting the van to Stevenson came from Stanley Caplan, General Valet's president, William Washington, its plant foreman, and from Stevenson, as well as from Stevenson's record of motor vehicle violations at the time of his employment, as recorded in the Department of Motor Vehicles. The court's opinion, 16 Md.App. at 465-469, 298 A.2d at 196, outlined the relevant evidence as follows:

'Mr. Caplan said that General Valet Service, Inc. operated a dry cleaning, laundry and tailoring business at Fort Meade, as a concession of the post exchange. It operated one plant and five branches, all at Fort Meade. It served only military personnel or their dependents, and only through its branches. General Valet employed wives of service personnel, all of whom lived locally, to operate the branches. The plant itself had about 20 employees, some 15 of whom lived in the City of Baltimore. The number varied from time to time with employee turnover.

'The company used three motor vehicles in the business, all of them leased from Hertz. One was a truck which made daily trips between Fort Meade and Fort Holabird. This arrangement was not further explained, and is not material. Another was a station wagon, which appears to have been used exclusively by William Washington, the plant foreman, for transporting himself and approximately six plant employees to and from the plant and their homes in Baltimore.

'The third vehicle was the step van involved in this case. This vehicle, and its driver, a Baltimore resident, performed a double function. It was equipped with bench seats, and each morning the driver, starting from his home, made a number of stops in the east and west sections of the city, picking up some eight or nine plant employees and transporting them to the plant. The same procedure was followed in reverse at the end of the working day. During the day this van and the driver were engaged in making pickups and deliveries between the plant and the five branches at Fort Meade.

'In August, 1967, Mr. Caplan learned that the driver of his van was leaving his employment. He advertised in the newspapers for a driver, and gave his home telephone number in Pikesville for responses to the ad. He said he had a lot of responses, but the difficulty was in getting the right driver he was looking for. He said he was looking for a mature, settled person. He had about a dozen calls before Stevenson's, and rejected them all. What attracted him to Stevenson was his age, in the fifties, the fact that he was married, had what seemed to be a normal family life at home, that he had a car, that he was settled-'he seemed as though he would be the man that I would need'-'I told him to come out.'

'Caplan hired Stevenson on 23 August 1967, after interviewing him at the plant at Fort Meade, checking his chauffeur's license, and taking the number. He said he had his foreman ride with Stevenson around the Post to see that he knew how to handle the truck, and he handled it very well. Stevenson himself testified to a much less comprehensive test. Caplan made a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to check on Stevenson's chauffeur's license, and his driving record. The record was 'flashed on a screen' and Caplan looked at it. While his later recollection of what was in the record was not entirely accurate, he was bound by the record as he saw it at the time. That record, which was in evidence, showed that Stevenson held a current chauffeur's license which had never been suspended or revoked, and showed the following violations:

                Date      Disposition  Description                     Points
                --------  -----------  ------------------------------  ------
                62-12-07  15.00        Automatic signal                 1*
                62-12-07  10.00        Fail to change name or address
                64-07-02   2.00        No regis card in possession
                64-07-02  L O 10.00    Fail to keep right of center
                65-04-14   5.00        Fail obey traffic device         1*
                66-04-27  15.00        Fail stop at through highway     1
                66-04-27   7.00        Improper tags
                66-10-22  10.00        Reckless driving                 3
                66-10-01  5.00         Operating on expired license     1
                67-01-10  RW 30D       Hearing--sus abey pend clinic
                67-01-09  L O 15.00    Fail obey traffic device
                67-04-28               Completed driver clinic
                             Record end Total Current points           05
                *Expired points
                

'When being questioned about the driving record he had seen, Mr. caplan said:

'I was satisfied that if the State had cleared him for driving, and his background, as I saw it, character and so forth, was all right, then I hired him, and I placed no more importance on it.'

'I saw no reason to go into his driving record any more than that, because it's the State's responsibility to clear him on driving, not mine.'

'I was satisfied with the fact that he was given a clean bill of health by the State. He was sent to school, and he finished the driving course.'

'At first, I didn't even intend to check his record until I thought it over about this thing where he said that he had finished the school, and I wanted to satisfy myself that he was telling the truth.'

'Stevenson was instructed not to use the van for personal business. Caplan said it never came to his attention, until after the accident of 3 December 1967, that Stevenson had violated these instructions. He denied that on one occasion he gave permission to Stevenson to move his sister's furniture in the van.

'At the time of the interview Stevenson gave a reference of prior employment as a driver, which Mr. Caplan said he verified. His recollection was that it was a large transfer company.

'Washington testified that as foreman at General Valet's plant it was a part of his duties to check on other drivers in the evening to see if the truck was parked in front of their homes. He said he give no driving test to Stevenson when he was hired. He described two occasions during Stevenson's employment of over three months when he learned that Stevenson used the van for personal purposes, against instructions. One was on a Sunday morning when he saw the van parked near a restaurant, and found the keys in it. He hid the keys over the sun visor, and left a note for Stevenson to call him at the plant. When Stevenson called, Washington told him he was not supposed to be using the van, and then told him where the keys were. Stevenson asked Washington not to report the incident to Mr. Caplan, and he agreed he would not. . . .

'On another occasion at about 8:00 or 9:00 o'clock in the evening Washington saw the van on the street. The next morning he spoke about it to Stevenson, who claimed he was just getting home, but Washington said that he did not accept that explanation.

'Washington normally drove by Stevenson's house three or four evenings a week, and every time he did so he saw the van parked there. Washington also said that he used to observe Stevenson driving the vehicle around the Post, in the course of his employment, and in his opinion, Stevenson's driving ability was perfect.

'Stevenson's testimony added little, if anything, to the evidence of the knowledge which General Valet had when it hired Stevenson, or acquired thereafter, of Stevenson's driving habits, or which should have prompted further inquiry into the subject. He admitted that at the time of the accident, a Sunday, he was using the van without permission. On one occasion, he said he had obtained Mr. Caplan's permission to use the van to move a bed for his sister. He also confirmed the occasion when...