Malan v. Lewis
| Citation | 693 P.2d 661 |
| Decision Date | 01 May 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 17606,17606 |
| Parties | Steven L. MALAN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. James C. LEWIS and Brett Lewis, Defendants and Respondents. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Utah |
Keith E. Murray, Ogden, for plaintiff and appellant.
Wendell E. Bennett, Salt Lake City, for defendants and respondents.
The plaintiff, a guest passenger in an automobile owned by defendant James C. Lewis, was seriously injured when defendant Brett Lewis drove the automobile off the road and struck a guardrail. Plaintiff suffered compound fractures of his right leg, which resulted in a shortening of the leg and the necessity to wear a brace for the rest of his life.
In the trial court, the parties stipulated that Brett Lewis was negligent and that plaintiff was not. The case was submitted for decision on the issue of the constitutionality of the Utah Guest Statute by a motion for summary judgment. The trial judge sustained the constitutionality of the Statute and ruled in favor of the defendants.
On appeal, the plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of the Guest Statute under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the following provisions of the Utah Constitution: the Due Process Clause of Article I, § 7; the Open Courts Provision of Article I, § 11; and the Uniform Operation of the Laws Provision of Article I, § 24. Because we decide this case under Article I, § 24, we do not address the other constitutional arguments.
During the late 1920s and in the 1930s, some thirty states enacted automobile guest statutes. 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 16.15 (1956). 1 Since 1939, no state has enacted a guest statute. 2 In total, thirty-three states have or have had guest laws, either by statute or judicial decision. Twelve of the statutes have been declared unconstitutional. 3 Nine other states have repealed their guest statutes, 4 and four states have substantially limited the scope of their guest statutes. 5 Three states at one time had judicially created automobile guest laws. The cases establishing those laws have been overruled in all three states by court decisions or statute. 6 Guest statutes have been widely and strongly criticized by legal commentators over the years. 7
In sum, twenty-four of the original guest laws have been repealed, declared unconstitutional, or overruled, and four have been substantially modified. At the present time, only five states have guest statutes that have not been substantially limited. 8 Utah is one of the five remaining states with an unmodified guest statute. The Utah Act was adopted verbatim from the California Guest Statute in 1935.
The Utah Guest Statute, U.C.A., 1953, § 41-9-1 et seq., 9 bars a nonpaying passenger who is injured in an automobile accident, or the passenger's heirs if the passenger is killed, from suing the owner or driver of the automobile for ordinary negligence if the injury occurs on a public highway. A passenger, or his heirs if he is killed, may recover damages only if injury is the result of intoxication or willful misconduct by the driver or owner or if the guest pays compensation for the ride. Thus, a child who is given a lift home from school and injured because of the driver's negligence, although the law requires the driver to carry public liability insurance, is barred from recovering any damages, even though the child is maimed for life and his family is rendered destitute by medical expenses. Similarly, a passenger, who is a fellow worker at the same business establishment, may recover for injuries caused by the ordinary negligence of the driver if the passenger hands the driver a couple of dollars, while another passenger in the same car and injured in the same accident is barred if he paid nothing for the ride.
Dean Prosser, commenting on the effect of guest statutes, has stated:
The typical guest act case is that of the driver who offers his friend a lift to the office or invites him out to dinner, negligently drives him into a collision, and fractures his skull--after which the driver and his insurance company take refuge in the statute, step out of the picture, and leave the guest to bear his own loss. If this is good sound policy, it at least appears under a novel front.
W. Prosser, The Law of Torts § 34 at 187 (4th ed. 1971). The Michigan Supreme Court made a somewhat similar point in Stevens v. Stevens, 355 Mich. 363, 370-71, 94 N.W.2d 858, 862 (1959), when it stated:
The friends of the driver, his family ... must suffer injury at his hands without recompense, solaced only by the thought that, after all, the skull was cracked by a friendly hand.... Why? Because the relationship between them was one of trust and friendship. No money had changed hands. If, however, not the neighbor himself is carried to town, but rather his livestock to the slaughterhouse,
many modern courts will permit full recovery for injury to the unfortunate animal through failure to use reasonable care for its safety. Is this one answer of an enlightened people to the hallowed question: "How much then is a man better than a sheep?"Since the 1930s, no state has adopted a guest statute. Rather, the frightful carnage and the high cost of personal and property damages produced by the rapid increase in automobile travel have caused state legislatures to provide various means of compensation to ameliorate the great personal and social losses. As the Iowa Supreme Court stated in Bierkamp v. Rogers, Iowa, 293 N.W.2d 577, 582 (1980): "[T]he fact that guest statutes have seen no expansion since 1939 is supportive of the conclusion that changed circumstances have mitigated, if not eliminated, the factors which supported or justified enactment of the statutes."
The policy of barring guests from suing host drivers has numerous exceptions. Since enactment of the Utah Guest Statute, the Legislature has acted in several areas of the law to provide effective remedies for persons, including automobile guests, who are victimized by negligent drivers. The effect of the legislative efforts has been to enlarge the number of nonpaying automobile guests who may recover for injuries caused by a host driver. In addition, the Guest Statute itself has a number of exceptions that allow guests to sue drivers for simple negligence. There is also a Utah constitutional provision, although it has never been specifically litigated in this state, that appears to conflict directly with the Guest Statute rule that heirs of a nonpaying guest killed in an automobile accident may not sue the driver for negligently causing that death. The original scope of the Guest Statute has been substantially narrowed, and its application to any particular guest is both problematic and irrational.
1. The Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, U.C.A., 1953, § 41-12-1 et seq., was enacted in 1951. That Act provides that an automobile driver who does not carry public liability insurance and is in an accident that causes bodily injury, death, or property damage in excess of $400 must post security in an amount specified by the Department of Public Safety or lose the right to drive. § 41-12-5(a) and (d). Although a financially irresponsible driver is not barred from driving until he has had an accident, the effect of the Act, together with the general tort law liability for acts of negligence, induced most automobile owners to acquire public liability insurance. That Act, however, made no change either in the Guest Statute or in the general tort law with respect to compensation for damages suffered by an automobile accident victim.
2. The No-Fault Insurance Act, § 31-41-1 et seq., was enacted in 1973. The legislative purpose was to provide a remedy for the "greater bulk of the personal injury claims that arise out of automobile accidents." § 31-41-2. The Act adopted an approach entirely different from that of the Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act. It provided a limited remedy for all persons injured in an automobile accident and thereby significantly modified the rights and remedies of victims of automobile accidents, including automobile guests. In doing so, it impliedly supersedes a significant part of the Guest Statute.
The No-Fault Act requires every owner of an automobile to purchase a no-fault insurance policy as a condition of registering his automobile. The Act requires the insurance policy to insure against most personal injury special damages, but not pain and suffering. The personal injury protection (i.e., "PIP") benefits include, within specified limits, medical benefits, loss of income, disability benefits, funeral benefits,
and survivor benefits. § 31-41-6(1)(a)-(d). 10These benefits are payable, irrespective of the fault of the driver, to any "person while occupying the described motor vehicle with the consent of the insured." § 31-41-7(b). The term "person" is defined by § 31-41-3(2) to mean "every natural person" and therefore includes all guest passengers, whether they paid for the ride or not. Thus, automobile guests are provided a remedy for relatively minor injuries by virtue of the No-Fault Act, but are cut off from any remedy for serious injuries that are greater than the limits established by the No-Fault Act, even though the host driver carries public liability insurance and was negligent or even grossly negligent.
Sections 31-41-4 and 31-41-5 of the No-Fault Act also evidence a legislative intent to provide broader, more effective remedies for automobile accident victims. They require every owner of an automobile either to purchase public liability insurance or to provide equivalent security that qualifies under the Safety Responsibility Act. Allstate Insurance Co. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., Utah, 619 P.2d 329 (1980). Thus, the No-Fault Act repeals by implication that part of the Safety Responsibility Act that...
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