Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/275/275mass277.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:21:25+00:00

Document:
MARY E. LAFFEY vs. ALBERT MULLEN.
(3) Such conduct on the part of the plaintiff, a guest, precluded recovery against the defendant, her host.
TORT. Writ dated January 12, 1928.
In the Superior Court, the action was tried before Walsh, J. At the time of the trial, the plaintiff was twenty years of age. Her testimony, described in the opinion, was given under cross-examination.
There was a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $4,300, recorded with leave reserved under G. L. c. 231, § 120.
Thereafter the judge ordered a verdict entered for the defendant. The plaintiff alleged exceptions.
J. M. Graham, for the plaintiff.
WAIT, J. The plaintiff was injured when a tandem motor cycle on which she was riding as a guest of the defendant, the driver, overturned in consequence of striking from behind a slowly moving horse-drawn tip cart. The accident took place on the broad and much used Taunton Turnpike in the dusk of a bitterly cold November afternoon. Both parties then were minors, the plaintiff seventeen and the defendant nineteen years of age. At the trial the judge, pursuant to leave reserved under G. L. c. 231 § 120, ordered a verdict entered for the defendant. The case is before us upon the plaintiff's exception to this order. For the purposes of the case, the defendant, in his brief, "concedes that the jury would have been warranted in finding that gross negligence on his part contributed directly to the plaintiff's injuries." It is his contention that the plaintiff was precluded from recovery.
cold air forced her to keep her head down behind the driver's back so that she could not see the road ahead; that she had several opportunities to alight and refuse to go further which she did not take, although there were opportunities to telephone to her home whence her father's automobile could have come for her. She never refused to go on. This establishes that, knowing the speed, the reckless driving, the questionable headlight and the doubtful brakes, she confided her care solely to the defendant, she accepted the risks of the ride, and she did not do what she might have done to secure her safety.
Whether or not this be properly described as contributory negligence, it is conduct which precludes recovery against a host. It is full acceptance of appreciated risks.
Elements are lacking which in O'Connell v. McKeown, 270 Mass. 432, and Gallup v. Lazott, 271 Mass. 406, took the cases to a jury.
The case falls within the class illustrated by Lambert v. Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway, 240 Mass. 495, and Oppenheim, v. Barkin, 262 Mass. 281.

References: § 120
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