Robinson v. Warren
Decision Date | 20 June 1930 |
Citation | 151 A. 10 |
Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Parties | ROBINSON v. WARREN. |
Action by Almon L. Robinson against Merton Warren. On plaintiff's exceptions to the instructions in the charge of the court.
Exceptions sustained.
Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and FARRINGTON, JJ., and MORRILL, A. R. J.
Peter A. Isaacson and Louis J. Brann, both of Lewiston, for plaintiff.
Fred H. Lancaster and Clifford & Clifford, all of Lewiston, for defendant.
This case comes up on plaintiff's exceptions to instructions in the charge of the court.
Plaintiff was the owner of an automobile in collision on an Auburn highway with an automobile owned by the defendant.
Suit was brought for damage to the automobile, and verdict was for defendant.
It is stipulated by counsel that the testimony given at the trial showed the following facts: On the twentieth day of August, 1929, plaintiff loaned his car for the evening to his son for the son's pleasure. The latter filled the car with his friends and took an extended evening drive.
While returning toward Auburn he allowed Francis W. Kimball, one of the parties whom he had invited to ride with him, to drive the automobile, and as the car, so driven, entered the intersection of Minot and Western avenues, in the city of Auburn, the automobile of defendant, traveling along Minot avenue, collided with plaintiff's automobile and caused it to be severely damaged.
It is further stipulated that plaintiff had no control of his car after he loaned it to his son.
It appears that two women and their husbands were in plaintiff's car at the time of collision; that the two women suffered physical injury; that suits were brought by each of the women and by the husbands; and that these four suits were tried with the suit in the case at bar.
The justice instructed the jury that in each of the several cases they must be satisfied by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was guilty of negligence, in the operation of his car at the time of collision, or that there could be no verdict for any plaintiff.
Then, as governing their consideration of the case at bar, he proceeded:
As the learned justice observed, no case has heretofore been brought to this court for decision, involving the precise point in the present case; that is, to determine whether or not an owner of property loaned, as was the car in this case, after negligent injury by a third party while the property was in the possession of the one to whom it was loaned, may recover of the third party for that injury even if negligence is proven on the part of the borrower of the car.
The relation existing between his father, the owner of the automobile, and the son during the pleasure ride is first to be established.
The mere parental and filial relation between the owner and borrower is not sufficient to bar the owner from recovery.
And the relation of master and servant does not exist, because by stipulation we find that the car was loaned, to be used solely for the son's pleasure and not upon his father's business.
The law has been so stated recently by this court in Farnum v. Clifford, 118 Me. 145, 106 A. 344; Pratt v. Cloutier, 119 Me. 203, 110 A. 353, 10 A L. R. 1434.
Nor does the doctrine of principal and agent apply, for in this state, the "family purpose rule" is not applied to heads of families who own automobiles and allow the use of them by members of their families, who are licensed to drive such cars. Farnum v. Clifford, supra.
The relation, in law, between the owner and borrower of the Robinson car on the evening of the collision was that of bailor and bailee, and we are concerned with the ruling instructing the jury, in effect, that contributory negligence of the bailee, in this case, would prevent recovery on the part of the bailor.
There is not uniformity of view in the courts of our land upon this point.
Except in carrier cases, the majority of the decisions of years ago held that contributory negligence of a bailee was imputable to his bailor when the latter brought suit for negligent injury to his property in the bailee's hands.
But, within the last generation, and particularly during the twentieth century, there has been a change in the weight of authority on this question.
For the position taken by the presiding justice we find this statement: ...
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