Shufelt v. McCartin

• Decision Date: 28 February 1920
• Parties: SHUFELT v. McCARTIN (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

235 Mass. 122

126 N.E. 362

SHUFELT

v.McCARTIN (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

Feb. 28, 1920.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Norfolk County; John D. McLaughlin, Judge.

Actions by Lucy J. Shufelt and Arthur M. Shufelt against Michael J. McCartin. Verdicts for defendant, and plaintiffs except. Exceptions sustained.

LICENSES k36-REGISTRATION OF AUTOMOBILE IN NAME OF ONE PART OWNER DOES NOT PERMIT OPERATION BY OTHER.

Registration of a motor vehicle, under St. 1909, c. 534, s 2, as amended by St. 1912, c. 400, s 1, by one part owner alone, is not such a ‘registration’ as permits lawful operation of the car by the other unnamed and unrecorded co-owner.

Frank W. Campbell, of Boston, for plaintiffs.

Sanborn & Squires, of Norwood, for defendant.

PIERCE, J.

These are two actions of tort by a husband and wife, for consequential and direct damages resulting from a collision on a public highway on June 16, 1917, of an automobile, owned and operated by the husband, with an automobile owned by the defendant and his sister, and operated by the defendant. There was sufficient evidence upon which the jury might properly have found that the accident resulted from the negligence of the defendant or from the negligence of the husband; the evidence also would warrant a finding that the husband and the defendant were in the exercise of due care. The car was registered in the name of the sister and was not registered in the name of the defendant. The jury as an issue of fact expressly found the defendant's sister was ‘the owner of an undivided interest in the car when it was registered’ in her name. After ‘full and appropriate instructions' as to what ‘would constitute due care and contributing negligence to which no exception was taken,’ the jury found for the defendant in each case.

The plaintiffs, before the common-law issues of due care and negligence were submitted to the jury, seasonably requested the judge to rule that ‘the automobile operated by McCartin at the time of the accident was not properly registered with the Massachusetts highway commission.’ This request was refused and the plaintiffs duly excepted. They also duly excepted to that portion of the charge wherein the jury were told:

‘Now I instruct you that if the sister was the owner, although merely a part owner, if she was in good faith a part owner, if through the arrangement made with her brother in the purchase of it she shared in the ownership, then the fact that the car was registered solely in her name, and not in the names of both, would not affect the registration or make it illegal. That is, the car * * * would be legally registered, although it were registered in the name of one owner, if that persons in whose name it was registered was...