Pedevillano v. Bryon

• Decision Date: 18 October 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14962,14962
• Citation: 231 Conn. 265,648 A.2d 873
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Joseph PEDEVILLANO v. Jose BRYON et al.

Page 873

648 A.2d 873

231 Conn. 265

Joseph PEDEVILLANO v. Jose BRYON et al.

No. 14962.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 21, 1994.

Decided Oct. 18, 1994.

Leonard M. Crone, with whom, on the brief, was Timothy C. Moynahan, Waterbury, for appellant (plaintiff).

David J. Elliott, with whom was Robin L. Smith, Hartford, for appellee (defendant Rental Car Resources, Inc.).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, NORCOTT, KATZ and PALMER, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether General Statutes § 14-154a ¹ imposes liability on the lessor of a motor vehicle for the tortious operation of that motor vehicle by a person who is not an "authorized driver" within the terms of the lease agreement. The plaintiff, Joseph Pedevillano, brought an action claiming that he had sustained serious personal injuries as a result of the negligent and reckless conduct of the defendant Jose Bryon (driver), who was driving a car that had been leased from the defendant Rental Car Resources, Inc. (lessor). After a default by the driver and a hearing to determine damages, a jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff against the driver in the amount of $354,000. The trial court rendered a judgment accepting the jury's verdict, from which the driver has not appealed. The trial court also, however, granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the lessor. The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court from the granting of the motion for summary judgment, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The relevant facts are undisputed. The driver caused serious personal injury to the plaintiff while operating a vehicle that the lessor had rented to Miguel Santana. Santana had procured the vehicle, either for his own use to replace a disabled vehicle or for the driver's use at the driver's request. The driver was neither a spouse nor an employer of Santana, nor were they jointly engaged in legal business activities. The lease agreement between Santana and the lessor had an express provision defining who would qualify as an "authorized driver" under the lease. ²

The plaintiff advances four contentions in his brief in support of his argument for reversal of the trial court's granting of the lessor's motion for summary judgment. He maintains that: (1) literally construed, § 14-154a imposes unconditional liability on a lessor for injuries caused by any user of the lessor's vehicles; (2) liberally construed in light of its remedial purposes, § 14-154a imposes liability on a lessor for injuries caused by a person who uses the vehicle with the permission of an authorized lessee; (3) regardless of the relationship between the driver and the lessor, the plaintiff has a right to recover for his injuries because § 14-154a automatically makes the plaintiff a third party beneficiary of the lease agreement; and (4) the lessor was not entitled to summary judgment because the supporting affidavits leave unresolved certain questions of fact that make summary judgment inappropriate. We are unpersuaded.

Our assessment of the plaintiff's various claims under § 14-154a 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." 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.... 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." (Citations omitted; emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) Gionfriddo v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc., 192 Conn. 280, 284, 472 A.2d 306 (1984); Fisher v. Hodge, 162 Conn. 363, 369, 294 A.2d 577 (1972); Graham v. Wilkins, 145 Conn. 34, 37, 138 A.2d 705 (1958); Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Kohn Bros. Tobacco Co., 141 Conn. 539, 542, 107 A.2d 406 (1954); Connelly v. Deconinck, 113 Conn. 237, 240, 155 A. 231 (1931); Levy v. Daniels' U-Drive Auto Renting Co., 108 Conn. 333, 336, 143 A. 163 (1928); Marshall v. Fenton, 107 Conn. 728, 731, 142 A. 403 (1928).

In light of this long-standing interpretation of § 14-154a, we may readily dispose of the plaintiff's broad contention that the statute imposes unlimited liability on the lessor for any injury caused by any motor vehicle that it owns. If the plaintiff were correct, a lessor would be responsible for the tortious misconduct of a thief who stole a vehicle from the lessor's parking lot. Indeed, any automobile dealer, if the dealership engaged in lease as well as in sales transactions, might be liable for tortious misconduct arising out of the theft of any car on its sales lot. Nothing in the language of the statute, its statutory history, or our prior case law, suggests that the statute extends that far. Our decision in Connelly v. Deconinck, supra, 113 Conn. at 240, 155 A. 231, is directly to the contrary. At oral argument in this court, the plaintiff acknowledged that this argument is untenable.

We are equally unpersuaded that, even liberally construed, § 14-154a imposes unlimited liability on any lessor that voluntarily entrusts a motor vehicle to a lessee. In effect, the plaintiff argues that, under the statute, any voluntary entrusting confers upon the lessee the unconditional authority to permit any person of the lessee's choice to drive the vehicle. As a consequence, according to the plaintiff, any voluntary entrusting imposes on the lessor the duty to pay damages for any personal injuries caused by any person who drives the vehicle with the lessee's consent.

The plaintiff's argument is necessarily predicated on the proposition that the lessee's scope of authority and the lessor's statutory liability are determined by the statute without regard to the terms of the lease agreement pursuant to which the voluntary entrusting occurred. There is no binding authority for that proposition. The statute does not, in its terms, preclude a lessor from imposing reasonable restrictions on the identity of those to whom it is willing to entrust its property and for whose conduct it is willing to assume risk. In the cases in which we have found a basis for enforcing statutory liability, the tortfeasor invariably has been found to have been a person who had possession of the vehicle in accordance with the lease agreement. Gionfriddo v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc., supra, 192 Conn. at 284, 472 A.2d 306; Fisher v. Hodge, supra, 162 Conn. at 367-68, 294 A.2d 577; ³ Graham v. Wilkins, supra, 145 Conn. at 37-41, 138 A.2d 705; Farm Bureau Mutual...