Gionfriddo v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 February 1984
• Citation: 472 A.2d 306,192 Conn. 280
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 41 A.L.R.4th 977 Frank P. GIONFRIDDO, Administrator (ESTATE OF Kim M. GIONFRIDDO) v. AVIS RENT A CAR SYSTEM, INC., et al.

Page 306

472 A.2d 306

192 Conn. 280, 41 A.L.R.4th 977

Frank P. GIONFRIDDO, Administrator (ESTATE OF Kim M. GIONFRIDDO) v. AVIS RENT A CAR SYSTEM, INC., et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 3, 1983.

Decided Feb. 21, 1984.

Thomas R. Newman, of the New York bar, New York City, with whom were John R. FitzGerald and William G. Ballaine, New York City, for appellants (named defendant et al.).

Edward F. Hennessey, Hartford, with whom were David T. Ryan and, on brief, Thomas A. Young, Hartford, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before SPEZIALE, C.J., and PETERS, PARSKEY, SHEA and MENT, JJ.

PETERS, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this case is the scope of our statutes imposing liability upon owner-lessors of motor vehicles for the misconduct of a driver-lessee. The plaintiff Frank P. Gionfriddo, administrator of the estate of Kim Gionfriddo, brought an action in three counts against the defendants, Michael K. Gilliam, Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. (hereinafter Avis) and Chrysler Leasing Corporation (hereinafter Chrysler). The complaint sought: in the first count, compensatory damages; in the second count, exemplary damages; and in the third count, double or treble damages pursuant to General Statutes § 14-295. ¹ The plaintiff successfully moved for summary judgment as to liability against all three defendants on the first count of the complaint. Thereafter, a jury assessed damages against all defendants on the first and second counts, and the trial court assessed damages on the third count. The defendant Gilliam has taken no appeal. The defendants Avis and Chrysler have appealed from that part of the judgment holding them liable on the third count, while the plaintiff has cross-appealed the calculation of damages under the second and the third counts.

There is no present dispute about the underlying facts found in the trial court's opinion and the record as a whole. The defendants Avis and Chrysler rented a car to the defendant Gilliam on December 20, 1978. On January 4, 1979, Gilliam drove the rental car, while intoxicated, in a heinous, wilful and reckless manner, so as to strike head-on a car being driven by Kim Marie Gionfriddo, the plaintiff's decedent. Kim Gionfriddo died almost instantly.

The plaintiff brought his action for damages against all three defendants. On the first count, seeking compensatory damages, the jury awarded him $353,262. On the second count, seeking exemplary damages, the jury awarded him $124,977, an amount calculated as one-third of the compensatory damages. The damages awarded by the jury have been paid in full.

At issue before us is the award of damages on the third count of the plaintiff's complaint, a count that was tried to the court, N. O'Neill, J. The court found that the plaintiff had established the factual and legal predicates for treble damages under General Statutes § 14-295, and assessed additional damages of $706,524 against all the defendants. ² In trebling damages, the court took account of the compensatory damages awarded the plaintiff, but not of the exemplary damages.

The defendants Avis and Chrysler appeal the propriety of holding them liable for treble damages. The plaintiff, in his cross-appeal, claims that the awards of exemplary and of punitive damages were improperly calculated. We will take up first the issues on the appeal and then those on the cross-appeal.

I

The defendants Avis and Chrysler claim that it was error, for two reasons, to hold them liable for treble damages under the third count of the plaintiff's complaint. They do not challenge the trial court's finding of a factual predicate for invocation of the treble damages statute, General Statutes § 14-295. They argue, however, that they are not chargeable under § 14-295, as a matter of law, because treble damages are not permitted by either (1) the statute imposing liability upon owner-lessors of motor vehicles, General Statutes § 14-154a or (2) the statute authorizing a wrongful death action, General Statutes § 52-555. We disagree with both of these arguments.

A

In order to determine whether the trial court properly held the defendants Avis and Chrysler liable for treble damages under § 14-154a, we must start with the text of that statute. It provides, in toto, that "[a]ny person renting or leasing to another any motor vehicle owned by him shall be liable for any damage to any person or property caused by the operation of such motor vehicle while so rented or leased, to the same extent as the operator would have been liable if he had also been the owner."

Although this court has not previously had the occasion to determine specifically whether § 14-154a imposes liability for treble damages, we have repeatedly stated our view of the purpose of the statute. " '[It] cannot be regarded otherwise than as an expression of legislative judgment as to the extent--beyond the limitations of the general principles of respondeat superior and the "family-car doctrine"--to which the owner of a motor vehicle which he entrusts to another should be liable for the acts of the latter.' Marshall v. Fenton, 107 Conn. 728, 731, 142 A. 403 [1928]." Fisher v. Hodge, 162 Conn. 363, 369, 294 A.2d 577 (1972). We have consistently construed the statute "as imposing on one who rents or leases a motor vehicle to another the same liability as that of its operator, provided the vehicle, at the time in question, is being operated by one in lawful possession of it pursuant to the terms of the contract of rental. Levy v. Daniels' U-Drive Auto Renting Co., 108 Conn. 333, 336, 143 A. 163 [1928]; Connelly v. Deconinck, 113 Conn. 237, 240, 155 A. 231 [1931]; Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Kohn Bros. Tobacco Co., 141 Conn. 539, 542, 107 A.2d 406 [1954]." (Emphasis added.) Graham v. Wilkins, 145 Conn. 34, 37, 138 A.2d 705 (1958). "[B]y virtue of the express terms of the statute the owner-lessor is made the alter ego of the operator so that the latter's acts with respect to the operation of the car ... are in law the acts of the owner-lessor." Id., 41-42, 138 A.2d 705.

In light of our consistent construction of § 14-154a, under which the owner-lessor is viewed as the alter ego of the rental car's operator, it is logical to conclude, as the trial court held, that the damages recoverable under § 14-154a include treble damages, whenever treble damages are properly assessed against the operator. The defendant Gilliam's liability for treble damages is unchallenged.

To counter this logical construction, the defendants Avis and Chrysler offer a number of arguments for limiting the language of "any damage to any person or property" in § 14-154a to compensatory and exemplary damages. They urge that the statutory language should be read narrowly to exclude treble damages: (1) to conform to our decision in Tedesco v. Maryland Casualty Co., 127 Conn. 533, 537-38, 18 A.2d 357 (1941), that an insurance company's vicarious liability is limited to compensatory damages; (2) to take account of the principle of Maisenbacker v. Society Concordia, 71 Conn. 369, 379-80, 42 A. 67 (1899), that there is no vicarious liability at common law for punitive or exemplary damages; (3) to harmonize our state law with the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 908 (1979) which limits a principal's vicarious liability for punitive damages assessed against an agent to specified circumstances, such as authorization or ratification; and (4) to follow decisions in other jurisdictions that interpret similar statutes to deny vicarious responsibility for punitive damages. We find none of these arguments persuasive.

The precedent established by Tedesco v. Maryland Casualty Co., supra, does not inform the construction of § 14-154a because that case arose in a different factual and legal framework. In Tedesco, we were called upon to interpret a provision of an insurance policy under which its issuer agreed to pay "all sums which the insured shall become obligated to pay ... for damages ... because of bodily injury." Id., 127 Conn. 535, 18 A.2d 357. We held that the injured plaintiff could not recover from the insurer a sum that was awarded, as multiple damages, against the offending driver. Id., 536-39, 18 A.2d 357. We noted that recovery of multiple damages, under the predecessor of General Statutes § 14-295 had penal as well as remedial aspects, but emphasized that, with respect to the offending driver, such a recovery "represents a sum the payment of which is imposed ... as punishment for a violation of the statute which has the aspects of a wrong to the public rather than to the individual." Id., 537, 18 A.2d 357. We went on to conclude that, because multiple damages were imposed on account of a wrong to the public, it would be against public policy to permit the insured, the offending driver, to recover such a sum from the insurer, and therefore improper to regard the insurance policy's coverage of "damages ... because of bodily injury" to include such a sum. Id., 537-38, 18 A.2d 357. Neither of the underlying reasons for the conclusion reached in Tedesco is applicable here. In our case, the issue is not one of shifting liability from Gilliam to Avis and Chrysler; nor are we interpreting language as confining as "damages ... because of bodily injury."

There is, however, a more fundamental distinction between Tedesco and the case currently before us. Tedesco arose in the framework of a contractual dispute, in which general common law principles of public policy guided the interpretation of contractual language. We have the task today of applying the statutory public policy embodied in § 14-154a. The legislature has determined that the owner or the lessor of a motor vehicle shall be liable "to the same extent as the operator would have been liable if he had also been the owner." One hundred years ago, in Levick v. Norton, 51 Conn. 461 (1884), we had before us a similar statute, requiring any driver who violated designated rules of the...