Dickerson v. Conn. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 October 1922
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DICKERSON v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

118 A. 518

DICKERSON
v.
CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Oct. 18, 1922.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William M. Maltbie, Judge.

Action by Florence L H. Dickerson against the Connecticut Company and others to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of each defendant. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for $9,000, against the defendant Frank Dickerson and in favor of the defendant Connecticut Company, from which the former defendant appealed. No error.

Edward L. Smith and Allan K. Smith, both of Hartford, for appellant.

Walter S. Schutz and Ufa E. Guthrie, both of Hartford, for appellee. Florence L H. Dickerson.

Joseph F. Berry, of Hartford, for appellee Connecticut Co.

WHEELER, C. J. The plaintiff offered evidence to prove that she was injured while riding as a guest in the automobile of the defendant Dickerson, in consequence of his negligence in the operation of the automobile and while she was in the exercise of due care. The jury rendered its verdict for the plaintiff against the defendant Dickerson.

The appeal assigns error in two points in the charge. The first assignment of error, being the only one pursued in the brief of the defendant, questions this portion of the charge:

"Coming now to Mr. Dickerson, he was the driver of this car, and the father-in-law, I think, of Mrs. Dickerson, the plaintiff. The duty which he owed to Mrs. Dickerson, riding as his. guest in that car, was also to exercise reasonable care to see that no injury came to her, the care that an ordinarily prudent person would exercise, situated as he was situated in driving that car, to avoid any injury to her. The 'active negligence' which Mr. Smith spoke of in his argument as being the test, in some sort, of the duty resting upon Mr. Dickerson, means no more than did he, in the operation of the car, do or fail to do anything which a reasonably prudent person would not have done, or would have done in order to avoid injury to her; it is the same test applied to the driver of the automobile instead of to the driver of the trolley car. Did he use the care of an ordinarily prudent person, situated as he was situated, to avoid the result which followed?"

The defendant complains of this excerpt" from the charge as holding that the defendant owner and operator of the automobile owed the same duty to the plaintiff, who was a guest, that he owed to the world in general, and as making no distinction between the gratuitous carrying of the plaintiff and the carrying of one for hire; whereas, as he insists, the true rule enforces liability for injury to a guest only for active negligence toward the guest, which involves something more than the failure to exercise ordinary care, and involves the presence of some conduct upon defendant's part which constitutes gross negligence, which is the failure...