Court Opinion

ID: 9563871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:48:53.363099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:06.519688
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring in the result).
I concur heartily in the result, but not for the reasons advanced in the main opinion. In this case everyone concedes that the sum of $2.00 to travel 72 miles, was consumed ■entirely for gasoline. Such concession should make it inescapable that instructions as to guest or passenger status were quite unnecessary. This court, nor the lower ■court, possibly could be so naive, under such ■circumstances, to be disturbed as to any •passenger-for-hire relationship, which is predicated on a profit motive. Anyone driving a car, including every member of this court, has discovered, — and of which judicial notice might be indulged, — that the mileage cost of the most efficient motor vehicle, cannot be gauged in terms of miles per gallon of gasoline. This being so, the. lower court in this case should have directed a verdict that there was no passenger-for-hire situation. It is common knowledge that gasoline cost of operation is less than one-half the aggregate cost of operation. Obviously, therefore, on concessions made, and on the data here, that $2.00 worth of gasoline was accepted to transport an individual 72 miles, representing about 2% cents per mile, by any stretch of one’s imagination such $2.00 could constitute a payment for profit to one who, when requested, undertook to take a relative on a trip that cost, not 2)4 cents per mile, but in excess of 5 cents per mile, — 7 cents per mile being the accepted minimum to drive any ordinary vehicle.
The jury was asked if it considered the girl who asked for a ride as a passenger for hire. In this case the emphatic “No” of the jury should be accepted without any Hornbook discussion, differentiating between guests and paying passengers. The jury system cannot be so sacrosanct as to attribute to the trial judge a learned stupidity as to plain, ordinary facts of life. The trial court here, in an attempt to .be overindulgent in arriving at a result born *24of justice, overdid himself when, by taking the bull by the horns, he presented a non-jury question to the jury. Here, the jury resolved the matter in favor of defendant. That was a determination of fact which substantiated what should have been a determination of fact as a matter of law by the court. That should have ended the matter.
It is difficult for this writer to understand why the main opinion should cogitate a problem non-existent here.