Ruel v. Langelier

• Decision Date: 01 February 1938
• Parties: RUEL v. LANGELIER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

299 Mass. 240

12 N.E.2d 735

RUEL

v.LANGELIER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Feb. 1, 1938.

Action of tort for injuries sustained when struck by an automobile by Anna Ruel against Aurore Langelier. From an order of the Appellate Division, directing entry of a judgment for plaintiff for $1,320 after vacation of a finding for defendant, defendant appeals.

Reversed, and entry of judgment for defendant ordered.Appeal from Appellate Division of District Court, Western District, Hampden County; Welcker, Judge.

W. T. Cavanaugh, of Springfield, for appellant.

O. D. Rainault, of Holyoke, for appellee.

QUA, Justice.

The trial judge found these facts: The plaintiff and the defendant with three other women left the home of a friend in Holyoke and entered the defendant's automobile, which was parked at the side of the road. The defendant was taking the four women to their homes. The defendant attempted to start the automobile, but could not do so, because the rear wheels spun around, wearing grooves in the snow, the automobile going forward and backward a distance of a foot or a foot and a half. The defendant said that some one would have to get out and push. The plaintiff and Ruth Bechard got out. The plaintiff went to the rear of the automobile, and Ruth Bechard went to the front of the automobile. The defendant was sitting in the driver's seat. Ruth Bechard talked with the defendant for ‘about a minute.’ Then the defendant, momentarily forgetting that the plaintiff might be at the rear of the automobile and that the gear was in reverse, started the automobile. The automobile moved back and struck the plaintiff, throwing her to the ground and injuring her. The plaintiff and the other women were taken home by the defendant.

The judge found that the defendant was negligent, but he also found that the plaintiffwas a guest of the defendant at the time she was struck, and found generally for the defendant. The judge made an alternative finding for the plaintiff in the sum of $1,320, in the event that an appellate court should find error in his ‘interpretation of the law that the plaintiff was the guest of the defendant when struck.’ The only question argued, and the question decisive of the case, is whether the subsidiary facts found permit the judge's ultimate conclusion that the defendant owed to the plaintiff the lesser duty of care which under our decisions a host owes to a guest passenger instead of the higher duty of due care under the circumstances which one person commonly owes to another.

The words ‘host’ and ‘guest’ often used in cases of this kind must not be allowed to obscure the principle underlying our decisions. As abundantly demonstrated in the leading case of Massaletti v. Fitzroy, 228 Mass. 487, 118 N.E. 168, L.R.A.1918C, 264, Ann.Cas.1918B, 1088, that principle, stated in very general terms, is that when one enters upon a gratuitous undertaking for the benefit of another the duty of care which he owes to that other with respect to his acts of commission or of omission in the carrying out of the undertaking is only the duty to refrain from gross negligence. The extent of the application of the principle is not now before us. In recent years it has been most frequently applied in cases of the so called ‘guest’ riding in the automobile of his ‘host.'

Coming now to the case before us, it must be clear that the degree of the defendant's duty does not depend upon the physical position of the plaintiff at the moment of the accident, or upon whether she was then in the defendant's automobile or outside of it, or upon whether in everyday language she would be described as a guest. The degree of the defendant's duty depends upon whether the act of the defendant claimed to be negligent was an act performed in the course of carrying out the gratuitous undertaking which the defendant had assumed. We think that the judge...