Opinion ID: 1837726
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Heading: changes since passage of the guest law

Text: In constitutional law, as in other matters, times change and doctrines change with the times. Ferch v. Housing Authority of Cass County, 79 N.D. 764, 59 N.W.2d 849 (1953). One example is in the field of charitable immunity, mentioned above. At the time when most of the decisions upholding the constitutionality of guest laws, cited above, were written, there was a comparable immunity of charitable institutions to suit. Prior to 1942, only two or three States had rejected charitable immunity outright, but by 1971, 31 States had done so. Prosser, op. cit., p. 996. Similarly, at the time when Silver v. Silver, supra , was first decided, automobile insurance was relatively unknown. The Supreme Court of the United States could then speak of the increasing frequency of litigation in which passengers carried gratuitously in automobiles, often casual guests or licensees, have sought the recovery of large sums for injuries alleged to have been due to negligent operation, without referring to insurance at all. But today, when 85 per cent of all automobiles in California are insured, the California court says: . . . the statute can no longer sequester the defense that it is a necessary means to thwart `ungrateful' guests. In plain language, there is simply no notion of `ingratitude' in suing your host's insurer. Brown v. Merlo, supra . [Emphasis in original.] The presence of insurance is even more persuasive in North Dakota, where the figure must be close to 100 per cent, if we include the coverage provided by the North Dakota Unsatisfied Judgment Fund, pursuant to Chapter 39-17, N.D.C.C., of vehicles otherwise uninsured. As was said by the Rhode Island court in Labree v. Major, R.I., 306 A.2d 808, 815 (1973), in one of many cases where States which do not have guest laws have declined to enforce guest laws of other States because of disapproval of the doctrine as a matter of public policy, . . . enactment of legislation in Massachusetts for compulsory automobile liability insurance clouds the rationale of the policy that a gross-negligence standard was necessary to protect against ungrateful guests. Other cases declining to enforce guest laws of other States as being against the public policy of the forum State are Clark v. Clark, 107 N.H. 351, 222 A.2d 205 (1966); Kopp v. Rechtzigel, 273 Minn. 441, 141 N.W.2d 526 (1966); Mellk v. Sarahson, 49 N.J. 226, 229 A.2d 625 (1967); Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N. Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279, 95 A.L.R.2d 1 (1963); Wilcox v. Wilcox, 26 Wis.2d 617, 133 N.W.2d 408 (1965); Bolgrean v. Stich, 293 Minn. 8, 196 N.W.2d 442 (1972). Another recent development, the passage of a comparative-negligence law, reduces the viability of the guest law. Following a trend in other States (adoption in 10 States plus many Federal Acts since 1910, according to Prosser, supra, p. 436), the North Dakota Legislature in 1973 adopted Section 9-10-07, N.D.C.C., a general comparative-negligence statute. While it is no doubt possible to reconcile the guest law, with its gross negligence which precludes recovery, with a comparative-negligence law which allows recovery or refuses it depending upon infinite gradations of fault to be determined by a jury, the challenge would certainly be formidable and the possibilities of confusion great. In Nebraska, where guest law and comparative-negligence statutes coexist, a commentator has observed that the Supreme Court of that State has reversed jury verdicts in an extremely large percentage of these cases. John M. Gradwohl, Comparative Negligence of an Automobile GuestApportionment of Damages Under the Comparative Negligence Statute, Nebraska Law Review, Vol. 33, pp. 54-72, Nov.1953. Although it is a fact that the North Dakota Legislature has refused to repeal the guest law several times, we suggest that its adoption of the comparative-negligence law and re-enactment of the general law as to liability for ordinary negligence (Sec. 9-10-06, N.D.C.C., quoted supra ), are essentially incompatible with retention of the guest law at the same session of the Legislature. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin seems to have been of a similar opinion when it abolished its judge-made doctrine of gross negligence in Bielski v. Schulze, 16 Wis.2d 1, 114 N.W.2d 105 (1962). We are asked here to declare Chapter 39-15 unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and under Sections 11, 13, and 20 of the North Dakota Constitution. We decline to do so on Federal constitutional grounds, in view of the foregoing analysis, believing that the Federal courts would (and should) leave the matter to the State courts and might perhaps hold that the statute complies with minimum Federal standards, as they did in Silver v. Silver, supra . To this extent we disagree with Brown v. Merlo, supra , which held that the California statute violated both Federal and State Constitutions.