Fulghum v. Bleakley

• Decision Date: 08 August 1935
• Docket Number: 14122.
• Citation: 181 S.E. 30,177 S.C. 286
• Parties: FULGHUM v. BLEAKLEY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

181 S.E. 30

177 S.C. 286

FULGHUM v. BLEAKLEY.

No. 14122.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

August 8, 1935

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Edgefield County; C.J Ramage, Judge.

Action by Benjamin C. Fulghum against Arthur Bleakley. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

T. B Greneker, of Edgefield, and Bussey & Fulcher, of Augusta Ga., for appellant.

Pierce Brothers, of Augusta, Ga., and J. Strom Thurmond, of Edgefield, for respondent.

STABLER Chief Justice.

On August 20, 1933, the plaintiff, Fulghum, was traveling, as an invited guest without the payment of any fare, in the automobile of the defendant, Bleakley, from the Bath Lake in South Carolina to Augusta, Ga. Just south of Clearwater within this state, while descending a hill, the machine in which they were riding ran into the back of another car, and as a result of the collision Fulghum sustained severe personal injuries. This action was then brought for damages for the injuries so received; it being alleged that the heedless and reckless acts of Bleakley, in the driving of his automobile, were the direct and proximate cause thereof. In due time on trial of the case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the plaintiff had failed to establish his right to recover under the statute controlling in an action of this kind, as the evidence did "not show that the injury was intentional on the part of the defendant, or caused by his heedlessness or reckless disregard of the rights of others." The court overruled the motion, and the jury found for the plaintiff $500. From judgment duly entered, this appeal is taken.

The act referred to, now appearing as section 5908 of the Code of 1932, and under which this action was brought, was passed by the Legislature in 1930 (36 St. at Large, p. 1164), section 1 of which reads as follows: "No person transported by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle as his guest without payment for such transportation shall have a cause of action for damages against such automobile, its owner or operator for injury, death or loss, in case of accident unless such accident shall have been intentional on the part of said owner or operator or caused by his heedlessness or his reckless disregard of the rights of others."

It appears that the first guest statute, of which ours is an exact copy, was passed by the Legislature of Connecticut in 1927 (Pub. Acts 1927, c. 308) and had been construed by the Supreme Court of Errors of that state before its adoption and enactment by the lawmaking body of South Carolina. In Silver v. Silver, 108 Conn. 371, 143 A. 240, 241, 65 A. L. R. 943, decided in 1928, the court fully discussed the purpose of the Legislature in the enactment of the statute, and pointed out that it had been previously held in that jurisdiction, in line with the weight of authority elsewhere, that the owner of an automobile who invited a guest to ride with him was bound to exercise only ordinary or reasonable care in the operation of the vehicle. It then said:

"It is the contention of the plaintiff that the statute effects no change in the liability of the owner or operator to his guest, and that the former is still liable if the accident is caused by his 'heedlessness,' which the plaintiff claims is the equivalent in meaning of carelessness or negligence. * * * The question for our consideration, however, is not the meaning of a single word in an abstract sense, but its meaning with due regard to its context and the meaning of the entire phrase or sentence in which it appears. We must assume that the Legislature was familiar with the decisions of this court permitting a recovery by a guest in an automobile for injuries resulting from the negligence of the owner or operator, and that, when it undertook to legislate upon that subject, it was with the purpose of making some change in the existing law. City of Stamford v. Stamford, 107 Conn. 596, 141 A. [891] 895. Such purpose is pretty clearly indicated in the title of the act and in the first clause of the first section, which provides that no guest shall have a cause of action against the owner or operator of the car in case of accident. Then follows a statement of the exceptions to the general rule: 'Unless such accident shall have been intentional on the part of said owner or operator or caused by his heedlessness or his reckless disregard of the rights of others.'

If the phrase 'or caused by his heedlessness' is to be taken as strictly disjunctive as by itself constituting an exception to the general rule of nonliability, and 'heedlessness' is held to be synonymous with 'negligence,' the entire statute is nugatory and effects no change whatever in the law as it existed before its enactment. We do not think that is a sensible construction of the statute. It would utterly fail to effectuate the obvious purpose of the Legislature in some way to limit the liability of the owner or operator of a motor vehicle to one who was riding in it as his guest. The language of the statute indicates an intention to limit such liability to two classes of cases: First, when the accident was caused by intentional misconduct; and, second, when it was caused by heedless or reckless disregard of the rights of others, meaning thereby something more than the mere failure to exercise the care of a reasonably prudent man which is the familiar definition of negligence."

In Bordonaro v. Senk, 109 Conn. 428, 147 A. 136, 137, decided in 1929, the matter of the construction of the statute was again considered; and, in approving the conclusions reached in Silver v. Silver, supra, the court further observed: "The framers of the statute undoubtedly used the noun "heedlessness' in place of the adjective 'heedless' and the word 'or' for "and.' The phrase 'or caused by his heedlessness or his reckless disregard of the rights of others' meets the legislative intention when it is construed to read or caused by his heedless and his reckless disregard of the rights of others." And in Grant v. MacLelland, 109 Conn. 517, 147 A. 138, 139, it was held that the interpretation given the statute in the Bordonaro Case "must be regarded as final." See, also, the following decisions of the same court: Ascher v. H. E. Friedman, Inc., 110 Conn. 1, 147 A. 263; Rindge v. Holbrook, 111 Conn. 72, 149 A. 231; Potz v. Williams, 113 Conn. 278, 155 A. 211; Sadinsky v. Coughlin, 114 Conn. 585, 159 A. 492.

As we have said, at the time of its passage by our Legislature in 1930, the statute had been construed by the Connecticut court as above indicated; and the effect of this pertinent fact is to raise the presumption, there being no express provision to the contrary, that the Legislature intended such interpretation to form a part of the act as adopted by it. Fuller v. South Carolina Tax Commission, 128 S.C. 14, 121 S.E. 478, 481; Ashley v. Brown, 198 N.C. 369, 151 S.E. 725; Commonwealth v. Huntington, 148 Va. 97, 138 S.E. 650.

In the Fuller Case, the court said: " Where the language incorporated into a statute is identical or substantially identical with that appearing in similar statutes of other states which have received judicial construction and interpretation prior to the adoption of the statute under consideration, in the absence of an expressed intention to the contrary it will be presumed that the subsequently enacted statute was intended to be understood and applied in accordance with the construction given it by the courts of the states which had first adopted it. 25 R. C. L. 1069-1071; Simpson v. Willard, 14 S.C. 191."

But aside from this, we conclude, for the reasons stated by it, that the Connecticut court was correct. When effect is given to the...