Thompson v. Hagan

Decision Date26 June 1974
Docket NumberNo. 11413,11413
PartiesF. Chad THOMPSON and Norma J. Thompson, Plaintiffs, v. Alfred C. HAGAN, Judge of the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District for the State of Idaho, In and For the County of Ada, Defendant.
CourtIdaho Supreme Court

Robert J. Koontz of Elam, Burke, Jeppsen, Evans & Boyd, Boise, for plaintiffs.

Howard D. Humphrey of Clemons, Cosho, Humphrey & Samuelsen, Boise, for defendant.

McQUADE, Justice.

This is an original proceeding seeking a writ of mandate to require application of the motor vehicles guest statute in a proceeding based upon an automobile accident that occurred on October 20, 1972, in Owyhee County, Idaho. The petitioner, 1 F. Chad Thompson, was driving an automobile, and Harvey Adams, a passenger, was injured when the vehicle left the road. Adams filed an action against the petitioners alleging that he was not a guest passenger. The petitioners filed a motion for summary judgment supported by affidavits that alleged Adams was a guest passenger and therefore his action was barred by the Idaho guest statute. 2 Judge Hagan denied the motion for summary judgment on the ground that the Idaho guest statute was unconstitutional or had been impliedly repealed by the enactment of Idaho comparative negligence statutes.

The petitioners filed a petition with this Court requesting a writ of mandate directing the respondent, Judge Hagan, to apply the Idaho guest statute and grant their motion for summary judgment. This Court issued an alternative writ of mandate ordering Judge Hagan to show cause why the order denying the motion for summary judgment should not be vacated, and why an order granting the motion for summary judgment should not issue. Both parties have presented briefs and oral argument on the constitutionality of the Idaho guest statute.

The Idaho guest statute provides,

'Liability of motor owner to guest.-No person transported by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle as his guest without payment for such transportation shall have a cause for damages against such owner or operator for injuries, death or loss, in case of accident, unless such accident shall have been intentional on the part of the said owner or operator or cause by his intoxication or gross negligence.' 3

The respondent contends that the guest statute violates the equal protection guarantee of the Idaho 4 and United States 5 Constitutions because it denies to automobile guests injured in an accident a cause of action against a driver-host in an accident based on ordinary negligence, but it permits all other persons including guests in other automobiles, paying passengers, other drivers and pedestrians to recover for their negligently caused injuries. It is argued that the guest statute arbitrarily singles out guests of the negligent driver for special treatment and therefore denies to them the same treatment accorded to all other persons involved in accidents in violation of the guarantees of equal protection of the law.

To determine whether a statutory classification scheme violates the equal protection guarantee, the United States Supreme Court has followed a two tier test. 6 If the classification involves a fundamental right such as the right to vote, 7 or if the classification involves a suspect classification such as race, 8 it has been held that the state bears a heavy burden to justify the classification distinctions. The analysis for fundamental rights and suspect classifications is called the strict scrutiny test. In all other areas of the law such as social welfare legislation, 9 a restrained standard of review is applied. In the recent case of Reed v. Reed this restrained review was articulated as,

'The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification 'must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.' Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 64 L.Ed. 989 (1920).' 10

The restrained review approach requires that the statutory classification be reasonably related to the purpose of the statute. 11 For the purposes of this opinion the proper standard of review is the restrained review test. 12 The question presented by this proceeding is whether the denial of an automobile guest's negligence cause of action against his host bears a rational relationship to the objectives sought to be advanced by the guest statute.

Two arguments have been advanced in justification of the guest statute's classification scheme. 13 First, it is said that the guest statute promotes hospitality by insulating drivers from lawsuits by ungratefull guests. Second, it is suggested that the guest statute eliminates collusive lawsuits in which a host fraudulently confesses negligence to enable his guest to recover from his insurance company. The petitioners set forth the above two justifications for the guest statute and add a third rationale that the guest statute is a legislative attempt to bring automobile guests into parity with licensees on real property. Each of the three justifications must be examined separately to determine if the denial of a guest's negligence action against his host bears a rational relationship to the objectives of promotion of hospitality, prevention of collusion and parity between licensees and automobile guests.

The explanation of the hospitality rationale is that hosts should not be burdened by lawsuits by ungrateful guests who do not pay for their transportation. The explanation may have had validity in 1931 when the guest statute was first enacted, but today, the widespread incidence of liability insurance has destroyed the basis for the argument. 14 Because of liability insurance, the statute appears to result in the protection of insurance companies, not generous hosts, from lawsuits by negligently injured guests. The fact that insurance companies are the real beneficiary of the guest statute's protection is made clear by the second justification of the guest statute of prevention of collusive lawsuits which is discussed below. The guest statute cannot be reasoned to promote hospitality by protecting hosts from lawsuits by guests.

It is argued that the guest statute is directed against the hitch-hiker who reimburses his generous host with a lawsuit. However, it has been pointed out,

'Dean Prosser disclosed that he had once found a hitch-hiker case but had mislaid it and had been 'unable to find another.' The present writer having monitored the advance sheets in Torts for a generation has never found a single hitch-hiker case. 'The typical guest act case is that of the driver who offers his friend a lift to the office or invites him out to dinner, negligently drives him into a collision, and fractures his skull-after which the driver and his insurance company take refuge in the statute, step out of the picture, and lerave the guest to bear his own loss. If this is good social policy, it at least appears under a novel front.' Prosser, Torts 187 (4th ed. 1971).' 15

The spector of the ungrateful guest bringing a lawsuit against his generous host has an analogy in the beneficiary of a charity bringing a lawsuit against the charity. Similar to the guest statute, the common law developed the theory of charitable immunity to protect charities from negligence actions and the immunity was applied by the Idaho courts. In the case of Bell v. Presbytery of Boise 16 the charitable immunity doctrine was rejected in total. It was held that,

'Personal injury is no less painful, disabling, costly or damage-producing simply because negligent harm is inflicted by a charitable institution rather than a noncharitable one. As the author of one opinion stated:

'It has not been right, is not now right, nor could it ever be right for the law to forgive any person or any association of persons for wronging any other person.' (Mullikin v. Jewish Hospital Ass'n of Louisville, Ky.) 348 S.W.2d (930) at 932, infra.' 17

Similarly, the guest statute deprives automobile guests of a cause of action for negligence against their host, but allows tort actions by paying passengers, guests in other vehicles, drivers of other vehicles and pedestrians.

In conclusion, the guest statute does not promote hospitality or the sharing of transportation and therefore there is no reasonable relationship between the denial of a guest's negligence cause of action and the purpose of promotion of hospitality. The second justification of the guest statute is that it prevents collusive actions at law against insurance companies. The theory behind the justification is that since a host and guest are likely to be friends, the host will fraudulently state that the accident was caused by his negligence so that the guest may recover from the host's insurer. To prevent the risk of fraudulent collusion, the guest statute eliminates a negligence cause of action for all guests. If, as the rationale suggests, a host will agree to fraudulently state that he was negligent, there is nothing preventing him from stating that he was grossly negligent or intoxicated in order that the guest may recover from the insurer.

By denying all guests' negligence actions against their driver, the guest statute is over inclusive in its sweep and bars all the actions. The judicial system has several means for prevention and discovery of fraud which includes perjury, cross-examination under oath and various discovery devices. There is no reason to believe that they would be ineffective for the prevention of collusion in suits by a guest against a host's insurance company. There is no reasonable...

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