Greeley v. Cunningham

• Decision Date: 18 April 1933
• Citation: 116 Conn. 515,165 A. 678
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: GREELEY v. CUNNINGHAM et al.

165 A. 678

116 Conn. 515

GREELEY v. CUNNINGHAM et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 18, 1933

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County.

Action by Jennie Greeley against Irene Cunningham and one O'Connor to recover damages for injury to plaintiff's person and automobile, alleged to have been caused by defendants' negligence. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff against defendant O'Connor only, and he appeals.

William A. Bree and Frederick Day, of New Haven, for appellant.

Walter E. Monagan and William K. Lawlor, both of Waterbury, for appellee.

Argued before HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff brought this action to recover damages suffered in a collision between an automobile which she was driving and one owned by one of the defendants. O'Connor, and being driven at the time by the other defendant, Miss Cunningham. The complaint alleged negligence on the part of O'Connor in intrusting his car to Miss Cunningham to be driven upon the public highways when he knew or should have known that she was incompetent and inexperienced, and negligence and recklessness on her part in the operation of the car. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Miss Cunningham but against O'Connor. This verdict he moved to set aside, and from the denial of that motion he has appealed.

The plaintiff was proceeding southerly on the main highway from Watertown to Waterbury on the afternoon of a clear sunny day. The highway at the point where the accident occurred had a hardened surface about fourteen feet wide and a shoulder on each side about six feet wide. According to the plaintiff's evidence, she was driving upon the right side of the highway at about thirty miles an hour; the car which Miss Cunningham was driving was following her and just before the accident turned to its left to attempt to pass, going about forty miles an hour, and without blowing its horn; when the cars were opposite each other that which Miss Cunningham was driving suddenly swerved to the right and the cars collided. According to the evidence offered by the defendants, the horn upon the car being driven by Miss Cunningham was sounded when she attempted to pass that of the plaintiff; when the cars were about opposite each other and some three feet apart that of the plaintiff increased its speed: thereupon Miss Cunningham again blew her horn. When the car Miss Cunningham was driving was a little past the other, the latter struck the rear fender of the former: the car Miss Cunningham was driving began to sway or swerve a little and the plaintiff lost control of her car and the two cars came together again. The defendants also offered evidence that at the time of the accident Miss Cunningham was not a licensed driver: that O'Connor had been instructing her for a month or more, taking her out in the car two or three times a week; that on the day of the accident he could not go with her and asked Calvin A. Traver to take her out: that Traver was a licensed driver and O'Connor asked him to take her out because he knew he was a good driver and a good instructor; this was to be the last trip for instruction before Miss Cunningham applied for a license; when the plaintiff's car increased its speed as the defendant's was passing, Miss Cunningham became somewhat excited and asked Traver what to do and he told her to blow her horn; after the car she was driving was struck and began to sway, Traver grasped the wheel in an effort to straighten it out; but the cars came together again.

An automobile, while capable of doing great injury when not properly operated upon the highways, is not an intrinsically dangerous instrumentality to be classed with ferocious animals or high explosives (Gonchar v. Kelson, 114 Conn. 262, 271, 158 A. 545); and liability cannot be imposed upon an owner merely because he intrusts it to another to drive upon the highways. It is, however, coming to be generally held that the owner may be liable for injury resulting from the operation of an automobile he loans to another when he knows or ought reasonably to know that the one to whom he intrusts it is so incompetent to operate it by reason of inexperience or other cause that the owner ought reasonably to anticipate the likelihood that in its operation injury will be done to others ( Elliott v. Harding, 107 Ohio St. 501, 505, 140 N.E. 338, 36 A.L.R. 1128; Rush v. McDonnell, 214 Ala. 47, 50, 106 So. 175; Crowell v. Duncan, 145 Va. 489, 134 S.E 576, 50 A.L.R. 1425; Robertson v. Aldridge, 185 N.C 292, 116 S.E. 742; Saunders Drive-It-Yourself Co. v Walker, 215 Ky. 267, 284 S.W. 1088; Wilcox v Wunderlich, 73 Utah, 1, 272 P. 207; Hopkins v. Droppers, 184 Wis. 400, 198 N.W. 738, 36 A.L.R. 1156; Wilson v. Brauer, 97 N. J. Law. 482, 484, 117 A. 699; Piquet v. Wazelle, 288 Pa. 463, 136 A. 787; note, 36 A.L.R. page 1148: 68 A.L.R. 1013). We have never had occasion to apply this principle, but it does not differ essentially from that involved in the case of Burbee v. McFarland, 114 Conn. 56, 59, 157 A. 538, where we held that one who sells a dangerous article or instrumentality to a child whom he knows or ought reasonably to know to be unfit because of...