Court Opinion

ID: 9728070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:57:13.257642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:45.535461
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(concurring in reversal). While I am constrained to agree with the result reached by Mr. Justice Adams, I am unable to sign his opinion because I do not agree with the statement (p 106):
“The doctrine of imputed negligence was abolished by this Court in Bricker v. Green, 313 Mich 218 (163 ALR 697).”
Bricker v. Green was a landmark decision in our tort liability jurisprudence. I applauded it as a practicing attorney and I reaffirm my adherence to its salutary rule as a judge. But note its decisional paragraph, at p 235:
“We should not continue the invariable application of the so-called imputed negligence rule merely and solely on the ground that the injured person was a voluntary, gratuitous passenger in an automobile, the driver of which was guilty of negligence which wás a contributing proximate cause of an accident and injury to such passenger.”
As I read Briclcer it did not abolish the “doctrine of imputed negligence.” Bather it repudiated the doctrine as it had previously been applied in actions by a blameless passenger against a third party.
In Ter Haar v. Steele, 330 Mich 167, decided by a unanimous Court 5 years after Briclcer, the first *111headnote recognized the continued existence of imputed negligence:
“The contributory negligence of plaintiff’s employee who was driving plaintiff’s truck in which plaintiff was riding when injured by collision with defendant’s truck is imputable to plaintiff.”
This conclusion is consistent with the statement in the decision, at p 169:
“Neither party questions the law that any contributory negligence of Underhill’s would be imputable to his employer, the plaintiff.”
In Sherman v. Korff, 353 Mich 387 (14 NCCA3d 149), former Justice Talbot Smith, writing for the majority, declined to impute contributory negligence in an action by the husband against a third party, even though the husband and wife had joint title to the vehicle. Though Justice Smith had some harsh things to say about the “pernicious doctrine,” he did not say it did not exist. Rather he made it clear that the contributory negligence of the wife-driver was not imputable to the husband joint-owner, either by reason of the fiction of “right of control” (with which I thoroughly agree), or on the basis of a “common enterprise.” But the latter not because in an action by one member of joint enterprise against a third party, the negligence of the one venturer is not imputable to the other. Rather because in that case there was no joint or “common enterprise” in fact. As I understand it, it is still the law in this State (however anomalously) that in an action inter se negligence is not imputable as between joint venturers, but in an action by any one of them against a third party it is. (See Bostrom v. Jennings, 326 Mich 146.)
In the last analysis, the decision in Sherman, supra, p 397, rests on the syllogism, equally applicable here that: -

*112
Major:

“Authority and reason alike support the proposition that the true relationship between husband and wife at the time of the accident was that of bailor and bailee.”

Minor:

“ ‘The contributory negligence of the bailee, concurring with that of a third person to injure the bailed property, is not to be imputed to the bailor who is free from any negligence.’ ” [Nash v. Lang, 268 Mass 407, 412 (167 NE 762)] (Sherman, supra, p 402.)

Conclusion:

The contributory negligence of the driver (bailee) Beitz in this case was not imputable to the owner Breimayer (nor its subrogee) (bailor) in an action by Breimayer against a third party (Hoxie) for damage to the bailed property.
Therefore, in this case I agree with Justice Adams that the subrogee of the owner may recover, not because the doctrine of imputed negligence, in his words, “was abolished,” but because under settled law it is not here applicable. I agree further with my Brother that the “ownership statute” imposes liability upon the owner for the acts of one driving with the owner’s express or implied consent, but that it does not relate the driver’s negligence to the owner in an action against a third party.
For the reasons I have herein set forth, I concur in Justice Adams’ result.
Smith, J., concurred with O’Hara, J.