Court Opinion

ID: 9737752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:33:44.645162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:01.100563
License: Public Domain

GARRARD, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
The decisions of our Supreme Court have held that the “perverseness of attitude” necessary to recover in a guest passenger case can be established by evidence of the voluntary commission of the act coupled with an awareness on the.part of the actor that injury to the passenger will probably result. See, e. g., Brown v. Saucerman (1957), 237 Ind. 598, 145 N.E.2d 898.
The court recently addressed this qualitative question in Andert v. Fuchs (1979), Ind., 394 N.E.2d 931, 934. It quoted with approval from Clouse v. Peden (1962), 243 Ind. 390, 186 N.E.2d 1, setting forth an objective standard of
“.. . a very real and present likelihood of injury under circumstances where the misconduct of the operator of the vehicle would be the proximate cause of the injury.”
See also Frybarger v. Coffelt (1979), Ind.App., 387 N.E.2d 104, 106.
*618It appears to me that what we hold today is that Holderbaum’s action in attempting a nearly right angle left hand turn while driving at a rate of speed near sixty-five miles per hour is so fraught with peril that the perverse attitude-likelihood of injury element may be reasonably inferred from the act alone. As such it may be distinguished from situations involving speeding (Frybarger) or intoxication (Andert) where the evidence was such that the inference sought was possible, but without more a verdict to that effect would need be based on speculation and could not stand. On the basis of that distinction, I concur.