Scheer v. Rockne Motors Corporation

• Decision Date: 05 February 1934
• Docket Number: No. 207.,207.
• Citation: 68 F.2d 942
• Parties: SCHEER v. ROCKNE MOTORS CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

68 F.2d 942 (1934)

SCHEER v. ROCKNE MOTORS CORPORATION.

No. 207.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

February 5, 1934.

Ulysses S. Thomas, of Buffalo, N. Y. (George Clinton, Jr., of Buffalo, N. Y., of counsel), for appellant.

Franklin R. Brown, J. Edmund Kelly, and Rann, Vaughan, Brown & Sturtevant, all of Buffalo, N. Y., for appellee.

Before L. HAND, SWAN, and CHASE, Circuit Judges.

L. HAND, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff sued the defendant, a motor-car manufacturer and dealer, for injuries suffered while she was a passenger in a motor-car belonging to it, and driven by one, Clemens, a sales agent in its employ, stationed at Buffalo. His territory included parts of New York and Pennsylvania, and it was his custom and duty to cover it in a motor put at his disposal by the defendant. We may assume merely for the purposes of this appeal, because we do not so decide, that there was evidence that he had authority to take it also into Canada. On the day in question he set out from Buffalo on an errand to Windsor, Ontario; whether on the defendant's business or his own was in dispute. He invited the plaintiff to go along, and when near Welland his car careened, fell upon her and caused her very severe injuries. A jury might have found, as this one did, that this accident was due to his reckless driving at high speed. While the plaintiff was in a hospital in Welland, Clemens, being then under arrest for criminal negligence, got from her a release of himself and the defendant from any liability; this in consideration of his promise to pay her expenses while in the hospital. She testified that at the time and as an inducement, he told her that her injuries were not serious, and that she would be about again in a few weeks; and her doctor testified that though he told her that her back was broken, he too assured her that she would be able to leave the hospital in a few weeks. In reliance upon these statements, she gave the release, which Clemens destroyed as soon as it had served his purpose in his prosecution.

There is a statute in Ontario which provides that "the owner of a motor vehicle shall be liable for loss or damage sustained by any person by reason of negligence in the operation of such motor vehicle on a highway unless such motor vehicle was without the owner's consent in the possession of some person other than the owner or his chauffeur." (Section 41-A of the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, introduced as an amendment by section 11 of chapter 30 of the Provincial Laws of 1930.) Two Canadian barristers testified as to its meaning; one, called by the plaintiff, that it was to be read literally; the other that the owner was immune if the driver, though lawfully in possession of the car, was using it altogether beyond the scope of his authority, or in unauthorized territory. The judge refused to leave to the jury the interpretation of the section notwithstanding this difference of opinion; he told them that if the defendant had given possession of the car to Clemens, it made itself liable for his negligence. In this he therefore took the view of the plaintiff's expert, and in addition he necessarily ruled that the defendant might be liable even though it had not authorized Clemens to go into the province at all. He also charged them that if the plaintiff had been induced to give the release through a mistake of fact, it would not bar her recovery; and that her contributory negligence was for them to determine; that is, whether in view of the way in which Clemens had been driving the car, she should have done more than protest, as she said she had; whether she ought to have made him stop, have left him and gone to her destination by some other means. The jury found a verdict of $40,000 for the plaintiff, on which judgment was entered.

The defendant raised a number of objections at the trial of which we need discuss only the following: (1) That the Ontario statute, however interpreted, could not impose liability on the defendant, even though it had authorized Clemens to take the car into that province, unless his errand was within the scope of his authority. (2) That the statute should not be interpreted to make the owner liable if the driver exceeded his authority, or went beyond the limits to which he was restricted. (3) That the judge should at least have left to the jury the question whether the defendant had authorized Clemens to take the car into Ontario, even though it would have been liable if it had. (4) That the plaintiff had not proved any facts which would avoid the release. (5) That the judge should have directed a verdict against her because of her contributory negligence.

In general it is now well-settled law that the law of the place where the putative wrongdoer's conduct occurs determines his liability, when that question comes up in another jurisdiction. Slater v. Mexican National Ry. Co., 194 U. S. 120, 126, 24 S. Ct. 581, 48 L. Ed. 900; American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 356, 29 S. Ct. 511, 53 L. Ed. 826, 16 Ann. Cas. 1047; Spokane, etc., R. R. v. Whitley, 237 U. S. 487, 495, 35 S. Ct. 655, 59 L. Ed. 1060, L. R. A. 1915F, 736; Jarrett v. Wabash Ry. Co., 57 F.(2d) 669, 671 (C. C. A. 2); McDonald v. Mallory, 77 N. Y. 546, 33 Am. Rep. 664; Wooden v. Western, etc., R. R., 126 N. Y. 10, 26 N. E. 1050, 13 L. R. A. 458, 22 Am. St. Rep. 803; Restatement of Conflict of Laws, § 418. The wrongful act here in question took place in Ontario; it was Clemens's driving; Ontario might of course make him liable. But in imputing his liability to the defendant that law had to reach beyond its borders, for the only acts by which the defendant connected itself with him were in New York. It is indeed true that a principal may subject himself to liability from the acts of an agent whom he despatches to another state into which he never goes himself. He may make him an instrument of his will as much as though he used inanimate means; if he does, he will be liable according to the law of the place where his purposes are effected, as much as though he were himself there present. Rex v. Brisac, 4 East. 164; Rex v. Oliphant, (1905), 2 K. B. 67; Thompson v. Crocker, 9 Pick. (Mass.) 59; Com. v. Blanding, 3 Pick. (Mass.) 304, 15 Am. Dec. 214; Adams v. People, 1 N. Y. 173; Lindsey v. State, 38 Ohio St. 507. But the judge did not charge the jury that they might find for the plaintiff in case Clemens was acting within the scope of his authority when he went to Canada; he told them that his mere possession of the car was enough. It is clear that the defendant did not give him authority to go to Canada merely by giving him the car. Unless more than that was shown, the law of Ontario could not reach the defendant; the charge gave it extra-territorial effect, as much as though that province had pretended to fix liability upon Clemens for injuries suffered in New York. As this went to the very heart of the case as it was presented to the jury, the judgment must be reversed.

Against the possibility of a new trial, we must go further and decide whether the defendant would also be immune if it had authorized Clemens to take the car to Ontario, but if his errand in this instance had still not been within the scope of his authority; that is, whether the Ontario law might impute his wrong to the defendant merely from sending him into the province. New York has a somewhat similar law (section 59 of the Vehicle and Traffic Act Consol. Laws N. Y. c. 71), but it does not impute liability regardless of restrictions on the driver's authority. Chaika v. Vandenberg, 252 N. Y. 101, 169 N. E. 103. It will not therefore serve here, even though we could say that the New York statute became an implied term in the authority putatively conferred on Clemens by giving him leave to take the car into Ontario. To hold the defendant regardless of Clemens's divergence from his instructions, some other principle must be found. We must remember that the question is never of enforcing a liability arising in another state; no court can do that but one of the state where it arose; in the case at bar this is acutely evident because the defendant was never there, and could fall under no liability until it went there. A liability implies a sanction, and a sanction a person to coerce. The sole question, here as always, is how far the court of the forum will adopt the law of another place as the standard for its own legal consequences. A court of New York...