Smith v. Jordan
| Decision Date | 01 March 1912 |
| Citation | 97 N.E. 761,211 Mass. 269 |
| Parties | SMITH v. JORDAN (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Chas W. Bond and Geo. F. Wales, for plaintiffs.
Geo. L Mayberry and John M. Gibbs, for defendant.
The principles of law which govern this case are plain. A father is not liable for the torts of his minor son, simply because of paternity. There must exist an authority from the father to the son to do the tortious act or a subsequent ratification and adoption of it, before responsibility attaches to the parent. This authority may be express or it may arise by implication from all the attendant circumstances. The wrongful act must be performed by the son in pursuance of the business, incident or undertaking authorized by the father before the latter can be held liable. Such authority may be found in actual presence of the parent, in express or implied direction, or in a precedent course of conduct. If the act is within the general scope of authority conferred by the father, or in carrying out the enterprise for which the minor has been commissioned, then the father may be liable even though he had no knowledge of the specific conduct in question and it was contrary to his direction. If the act is not done by the son in furtherance of the father's business, but in performance of some independent design of his own, the father is not liable. The controlling rules of law are the same whether the business in question concerns the operation of an automobile or any other matter.
In the case at bar, a father had bought an automobile for the general use of his family. It was registered in his name, but the only member of his family licensed to operate it was his minor son and the machine never was operated except by him. The defendant testified in substance that his wife had his permission to use the automobile whenever she desired without making any special request for it, and that he expected his son to mind his mother if she asked him to take her out with the car. The plaintiff was injured by a collision with it under circumstances which warranted a finding that the son was negligent, on an afternoon when he was driving the car with his mother, at her request. These facts warranted the inference that the son was then acting in accordance with general instructions expressly or impliedly given by his father. The boy was not running it for any purpose of his own, but for the convenience of his mother and by her express direction, for whose use, in common with the rest of the family, it had been purchased by his father. If the father had employed a chauffeur outside the family at a stated compensation, it could not be contended seriously that taking the wife out for an afternoon...
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