Turney v. Meyer

• Decision Date: 06 March 1934
• Docket Number: No. 51.,51.
• Citation: Turney v. Meyer, 266 Mich. 87, 253 N.W. 226 (Mich. 1934)
• Parties: TURNEY v. MEYER.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

266 Mich. 87

253 N.W. 226

TURNEY

v.MEYER.

No. 51.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

March 6, 1934.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Ontonagon County; George O. Driscoll, Judge.

Action by Lloyd W. Turney against Gordon Meyer, transacting business as the Superior Motor Sales.From a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant appeals.

Reversed, and cause remanded, with instructions.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Donnelly & Walsh, of Ontonagon (Charles F. Meyler, of Detroit, of counsel), for appellant.

B. H. T. Burritt, of Hancock (Carl O. Bay, of Ontonagon, of counsel), for appellee.

NELSON SHARPE, Chief Justice.

On March 31, 1932, the defendant was operating a garage and service station in the village of Ontonagon.The plaintiff was in his employ.On that evening, the defendant, accompanied by his brother-in-law, W. A. Jamison, and Leon Hurlburt, also his employees, left the village in defendant's Pontiac 8 sedan, and went to the home of plaintiff's father, where he then was.At their request he accompanied them back to the village, where they spent about half an hour, when they again got into the car and started east on what is known as the Greenland road.There were a number of hills and curves on this road, and, while passing down what is known as the West Firesteel hill, and when near the bottom thereof and about one-half of the way around a curve, the car skidded and turned end over end and rolled off the road.The plaintiff sustained a severe injury to his right arm, and brought this action to recover the damages incident thereto.He had verdict and judgment for 2,865, from which the defendant has taken this appeal.

The action is brought under what is known as the Guest Act(Comp. Laws 1929, § 4648), and plaintiff's counsel concede that in order to recover it must appear by a preponderance of the evidence that his injury was caused by the wanton and willful misconduct of the defendant in driving his car.

The plaintiff testified that he had driven with the defendant‘quite a bit’ prior to that night, and that he knew ‘he was a fellow who drove quite fast,’ and that he so drove when on the way from his father's house to Ontonagon; that before they got to Ontonagon defendant put on the brakes of the car and said, ‘The front brakes were not wroking properly; the front brakes were grabbing-were working better than the rear brakes'; that the car swerved a little, and defendant said ‘that the brakes were not working right, front brakes.He didn't have any rear brakes, he said, the front brakes were the only ones working’; that he‘had no fear of going with him again’; that on the way to Greenland he said to the defendant, ‘Slacken down, you are going pretty fast,’ and that one of the other passengers also complained about the speed at which defendant was driving, which was about 60 miles an hour; that, as they descended the hill, the defendant...