Court Opinion

ID: 9766539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:52:27.878229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.658401
License: Public Domain

HILL, Chief Justice, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Auto-Guest Statute has been examined by the legislature many times in the past sixteen years. In 1969, a bill was introduced in the House that would have limited the Guest Statute to a narrowly defined class of guests, and a bill was introduced in the Senate to repeal the Guest Statute; neither bill passed. Tex.H.B. 779, 61st Leg. (1969); Tex.S.B. 405, 61st Leg. (1969). In 1971, a bill was introduced that would have repealed the Guest Statute; it did not pass. Tex.S.B. 158, 62nd Leg. (1971). In that same year, the legislature passed a comprehensive comparative negligence bill that specifically stated that it was not intended to repeal the guest statute; the bill was vetoed by the Governor. Tex.H.B. 556, 62nd Leg. (1971). In 1978, the Guest Statute was amended to its current form. Act of April 9, 1973, ch. 28, § 3, 1973 Tex.Gen. Laws 42-43. In 1983 and 1984, bills were introduced which would have codified the Auto-Guest Statute, without substantive change, under a tort recodification; the 1983 bill was vetoed by the Governor and the 1984 did not pass. Tex.H.B. 1186, 68th Leg. (1983); Tex.H.B. 123, 68th Leg., 2d Called Sess. (1984); S.B. 53, 68th Leg., 2d Galled Sess. (1984).
The majority recognizes that the rational-basis test, which only requires that the classification be rationally related to a legitimate state interest to pass constitutional muster, is applicable here. Under such test the legislature is given wide latitude in enacting laws. While this deference given to the legislature does not, and should not, result in an abdication of the judiciary’s responsibility to ensure that the legislature acts within the framework of the constitution, to achieve the proper balance of power between our branch of government and the legislature, we must be acute in deciphering what legislative acts truly trammel constitutional rights and what legislative acts are merely unwise in our own judgment. In Smith v. Davis, 426 S.W.2d 827, 831 (Tex.1968), we said:
[A] mere difference of opinion, where reasonable minds could differ, is not a sufficient basis for striking down legislation as arbitrary or unreasonable. The wisdom or expediency of the law is the Legislature’s prerogative, not ours.
As the majority notes, the primary legislative purpose behind this statute was to prevent fraudulent collusion between an insured party and a guest against an insurance company on the issues of the insured’s liability and the guest’s damages. The legitimacy of this purpose is undisputed. The Guest Statute creates two classes of automobile guests: (1) those non-paying guests related to the vehicle’s owner or operator within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity, who are being transported over the public highways, and (2) all other motor vehicle guests. This statute treats these two classes differently by denying the former group a cause of action in negligence for injuries sustained against the owner/operator while allowing the latter group a cause of action.
Under the rational basis test, I cannot say that this statute is not rationally related to the prevention of collusive lawsuits. The legislature is empowered to deal with problems like this. In enacting the guest statute, the legislature weighed “the advantage of barring fraudulent guest claims against the disadvantage of also barring honest guest claims. This balancing of intangibles is a proper legislative function.” Tisko v. Harrison, 500 S.W.2d 565, 572 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1973, writ refused n.r.e.).
That the legislature may have drawn the lines imperfectly when considered with the purported ends is of little importance to us in reviewing the rationality of the statute. This statute, with its many shortcomings, does have a “tendency to cure” the problem of collusive lawsuits. See Liggett Co. v. Baldridge, 278 U.S. 105, 115, 49 S.Ct. 57, 60, 73 L.Ed. 204 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting), overruled, North Dakota Pharmacy Board v. Snyder’s Stores, 414 U.S. 156, *199167, 94 S.Ct. 407, 414, 38 L.Ed.2d 379 (1973). If I were a legislator I would have voted to abolish the guest statute, but as a member of the judiciary it is not within my sphere of duties to substitute my judgment on this subject for that of the legislature.
Because I would hold the statute constitutional, I dissent.
McGEE, J., joins in this dissent.