Court Opinion

ID: 9851633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:16:28.11749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:09.502403
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing.
Plaintiff in error contends that the ordinary-care rule applies as to the duties owed'by the owner of an automobile to the guest of an agent of the owner exclusive of the negligence of the agent of the owner. In other words, the contention is that, if the duty of the owner to the agent’s guest is direct, ordinary care is required, and that, where the duty is indirect (through an agent), slight care only is required. We know of no such distinction in this State. As we understand the law, a guest of the owner’s agent is regarded in law as the owner’s guest, and the owner’s duty to the guest is slight care, whether the duty is direct or indirect through another person. The ruling in Burks v. Green, 85 Ga. App. 327 (69 S. E. 2d 686), is not authority for a contrary holding. In that case the plaintiff was not a guest of the defendant or a guest of an agent of the defendant. The quotation from Corpus Juris in that case, that “This duty and liability applies as to a guest in the owner’s vehicle as well as to a stranger on the highway,” had its source in Alabama and North Carolina cases, and in those States the rule of ordinary care obtains in host-guest cases and not the rule of slight care as in Georgia. Even if the opinion in Burks v. Green could be construed to be a ruling such as is contended for by plaintiff in error, the ruling was obiter.

Motion for rehearing denied.