Court Opinion

ID: 9643017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:15:30.171036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:56.498024
License: Public Domain

HITZ, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the judgment and opinion of the court in this case.
The plaintiff below was a member of the fire department of the District of Columbia, injured while at duty on a Washington street by a cab of the defendant company, the driver of which admitted that he was looking' in another direction at the time of the collision and did not see the plaintiff or his hose reel’ until after he had struck him.
The ownership of the cab by the defendant company, the grievous injury to the plaintiff, and the negligence of the driver are admitted, but his agency is denied.
The father of the driver was employed to drive this cab by an oral agreement between the company and the father, who was said to have been instructed to permit no one else to drive it.
This agreement required the father to pay the company $3.25 per day, and to exhibit the car as a going concern at the company’s garage once every 24 hours, between 7 a. m. and 7 p. m. All earnings above that sum were retained by the father. No accounting was required; no mileage kept; no uniform worn; no identification card furnished; no fixed stations required; but the drivers might cruise' at will; and were permitted to keep the cars in their own way at home or elsewhere, although the company’s garage was ample to accommodate all its cars. Each driver furnished his own hacker’s license, but the company neither kept a record thereof, nor checked its expiration.
The defendant company participated in a clearinghouse arrangement with other such companies to check upon drivers, and kept two cruising inspectors on the streets at all times.
This arrangement not only authorized, but induced, continuous operation of the cab by a method of speculative compensation for the joint benefit of owner and driver, which inevitably led the driver to work too rapidly and too long. Both father and son were licensed hackers; both lived in the same house; and the evidence indicates that, by arrangement between them, the father drove by day and the son by night.
On the evening of this accident the father reached home at 7 o’clock; left the cab in his open driveway, with the key in the switch; whence the son took it at 7:30, started on a hacking cruise; discharged his last passenger at 2 o’clock in the morning; and struck the plaintiff shortly thereafter on his way to his home in Maryland, where the cab was kept.
The son testified that he had frequently used the cab in this way with his father’s permission, but did not ask it on this occasion; the father testified that he had frequently permitted the son to use the cab, but not specifically on this night; while both testified that they knew of no authority from the company for the son’s use of the cab at any time, or tha1 the company was aware of his using it.
The trial court directed a verdict for the defendant upon which judgment was entered, and now this .court affirms that action on what it calls “the elementary rules of agency,” which, as I • think, entirely miss the mark.
For, in my view, the precise arrangement between the father and son is immaterial to the issue, and the defendant company is liable under other principles than the elementary rules of agency controlling the peaceful transactions of ordinary business between man and man.
In the turntable cases the Supreme Court long ago established the doctrine that the owner of a dangerous but attractive instrumentality, which is left accessible to the public, is bound to anticipate its probable use or invasion by un*510authorized and unqualified persons, to the injury of themselves or others; and even where the evidence is weak, and the negligence is slight, and the victim is a trespasser, yet the owner is liable if he omitted reasonable precautions to guard against such use and. injury. Sioux City & P. R. R. Co. v. Stout, 17 Wall. 657, 21 L. Ed. 745; Union P. Ry. Co. v. McDonald, 152 U. S. 262, 14 S. Ct. 619, 38 L. Ed. 434; Best v. D. C., 291 U. S. 411, 54 S. Ct. 487, 78 L. Ed. 882.
And Lord Ellenborough extended this protection even to trespassing dogs coming accidentally within the sphere of an attraction alluring to their instincts, though the Attorney General of England argued without avail that an Englishman could lawfully bait his own traps on his ground for his own vermin, without being answerable to his neighbor whose dogs might get caught therein while trespassing on his land.
Yet Lord Ellenborough held otherwise, and asked, “What difference is there in reason between drawing a dog into a trap by means of his instinct which he cannot resist, and putting him there by manual force? If a man knowingly keep a dog accustomed to bite, and any person coming in his way be bitten, an action lies against the owner, though he had no malice against the individual.” Townsend v. Mathew, 9 East. 277.
And in a case where a gun, erroneously thought by the owner to be unloaded, was left in a place accessible to children, and discharged by one to the injury of another, the same great judge held the owner liable, “as by this want of care, that is by leaving the gun without drawing the charge, the instrument was left in a state capable of doing mischief, the law will hold the defendant responsible. It is a hard case undoubtedly; but I think the action is maintainable.” Dixon v. Bell, 5 M. & S. 198.
So, where a man left his horse and cart standing on the street without attendance, and another man whipped the horse, resulting in injury to a third, the owner was held liable by Chief Justice Tindal, although it was contended that the man who whipped the horse, and not the man who owned him, was responsible, but the’ court said, “If a man chooses to leave a cart standing on the street, he must take the risk of any /mischief that may be done.” Ilidge v. Goodwin, 5 C. & P. 192.
In the leading case of Lynch v. Nurdin (1 Q. B. D. 29) Lord Denman said that “if I am guilty of negligence in leaving anything dangerous where I know it to be extremely probable that some other person will unjustifiably set it in motion to the injury of a third, and if that injury should be so brought about, I presume the sufferer may have redress by action against both or either of the two, but unquestionably against the first.”
And 57 years ago today Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in language strikingly applicable to present conditions, said that “It appears to us that a man who leaves in a public place, along which persons, and amongst them children, have to pass, a dangerous machine which may be fatal to anyone who touches it, without any precaution against mischief, is not only guilty of negligence, but of negligence of a very reprehensible character, and not the less so because the imprudent and unauthorized act of another may be necessary to realize the mischief to which the negligent act of the defendant has given occasion.” Clark v. Chambers, 3 Q. B. D. 339, April 15, 1878.
These well-considered English cases, and' others like them, have been repeatedly approved by the Supreme Court of the United States, as in 152 U. S. 262, at pages 278-280, 14 S. Ct. 619, 38 L. Ed. 434. And it is matter of common knowledge that modern automobiles are more dangerous than horses on English roads fifty years ago, or than turntables ever were at any time, or sporting guns, or baited traps. Yet pedestrians in Washington, and her firemen at their hazardous duties on her streets, receive less protection under her law today than was given to trespassing dogs in England by the English law a century ago, as against a dangerous instrumentality more deadly than anything in use outside of actual warfare, which is permitted to ply the public streets in a public calling for a private gain, under the gracious protection of the “elementary rules of agency.”
Two recent cases in this court were based upon principles which I think controlling here, in the first of which we held that a cab driver deviating from- his course to take home his girl, and thereby killing a pedestrian, was still in the employ of his employer, who remained *511liable for his act; while in the second we held that the question of the driver’s agency was matter of fact for the jury and not matter of law for the judge.
In each of these cases a cab company attempted to escape liability under the “elementary rules of agency,” but the court then found itself unable to allow a defense which it welcomes now. Schweinhaut v. Flaherty, 60 App. D. C. 151, 49 F.(2d) 533; Callas v. Diamond Cab Co., 62 App. D. C. 212, 66 F. (2d) 192.
The New York Court of Appeals, in extending the principle of Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N. Y. 397, 57 Am. Dec. 455, beyond poisons and explosives, to automobiles, in a case where a purchaser who had no contractual relation with the manufacturer of his car was injured by the collapse of a wheel which the manufacturer bought but did not make, held that the duty of care goes beyond things which in normal operation are implements of destruction, to things which are reasonably certain to endanger life and limb if negligently made.
Here Judge Cardozo said: “We have put aside the notion that the duty to safeguard life and limb, when the consequences of negligence may be foreseen, grows out of contract and nothing else. We have put the source of the obligation where it ought to be. We have put its source in the law.” McPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N. Y. 390, 111 N. E. 1050, 1053, L. R. A. 1916F, 696, Ann. Cas. 1916C, 440.
And the Supreme Court, in affirming this court in a case where a man was charged with fast and reckless driving “so as to endanger property and individuals,” very recently said, “The offense here charged is not merely malum prohibitum, but in its very nature is malum in se. It was an indictable offense at common law, * * * when horses, instead of gasoline, constituted the motive power. * * *
“An automobile is, potentially, a dangerous instrumentality, as the appalling number of fatalities brought about every day by its operation bear distressing witness. To drive such an instrumentality through the public streets of a city so recklessly ‘as to endanger property and individuals’ is an act of such obvious depravity that to characterize it as a petty offense would be to shock the general moral sense.” District of Columbia v. Colts, 282 U. S. 63, at page 73, 51 S. Ct. 52, 53, 75 L. Ed. 177; Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U. S. 352, at page 356, 47 S. Ct. 632, 71 L. Ed. 1091.
Manslaughter by automobile goes flagrantly unwhipt of justice, because twelve drivers sit on every jury.
And if judges continue to apply to this Juggernaut the elementary rules of agency and employment, which serve well enough among brokers and bookkeepers, but have no potency against the automobile, the wide trail of death and destruction will grow wider.
The motorcab is a demonstrated danger. But its deadly course can be legally controlled to an important extent by two measures, both of which are now sadly lacking in the District of Columbia.
First, by the courts, through holding the owner of a public automobile liable for any damage done thereby in any hands except those of a thief who has stolen it despite reasonable precaution by the owner to keep it safe, through lock and key or otherwise.
And this can be lawfully accomplished by application of principles long ago established to guard not only persons, but animals, against social dangers far less potential and all-pervading than the automobile is today.
Secondly, by a system of compulsory insurance preliminary to license of either cab or driver, such as prevails in some of our states, but which can be created here only by Act of Congress.
Between January 1st and this 15th day of April, 1935, 32 persons have been killed by automobiles on the public ways of the District of Columbia, and not through any catastrophe involving many persons, but by the daily crop of casualties flowing from the daily course of traffic.
The futile attempt to control this slaughter by “the fundamental rules of agency” should give way to rules equally fundamental and well established, but more stringent. The principles of the common la*gq .by their inherent vitality and continuing growth, are competent to cope with many of the new facts and difficulties of life that develop from year to year and from generation to generation as the complexities of the world increase, but not if the courts decline to employ the old powers so ready to their hands.
*512Hundreds of these taxicabs, flying the false colors of an incorporated responsibility which they assume but do not possess, and which disappears at every attempt to enforce it, are daily dashing about our streets in the hands of youthful drivers, irresponsible, uninsured, and driving on speculation.
I think the obligation of ownership follows the cab, and is not dissolved when it finds its way into unauthorized hands through the negligence of the owner or his agent.
The ordinary rules of agency are inadequate to the situation, because the obligation of the owner is to answer not only for the agent, but also for the thing.
And his legal duty is to foresee that a thing so alluring, so capable of profit, so mobile, and so dangerous, as a motor-cab, is likely to be used by unauthorized persons to the public injury if left in accessible places unguarded and unlocked. He is, therefore, bound to take reasonable precaution to prevent such use and such injury, which duty is not discharged by leaving his cab in an open space with the key in the switch.
I find nothing to indicate any recognition of responsibility to the public in the defendant’s profit-sharing arrangement with irresponsible drivers, who are permitted to keep its cabs outside of its ample garage, outside of its opportunities for supervision, and,beyond the jurisdiction, for months at a time, so long as they pay their daily portion, and make daily profert of the cab.
And after this collision, which left the plaintiff crippled for life, and the defendant free from responsibility, the company continued the same arrangement with the same driver on the same loose terms, repairing his damaged cab, and rewarding him with another.
The foregoing cases are not cited as being precisely in point, but because they illustrate a line of judicial thought, of long standing and high authority, capable of contributing much to the mitigation of a great and growing evil, if duly followed and developed.
For while these cases differ as much in their facts and circumstances as in their time, underlying them all goes the doctrine that ownership or control of property of certain sorts involves an obligation to recognize the potential danger inherent in its nature.
Which raises an affirmative duty to foresee that such property is likely to be used or moved by unauthorized persons for unintended purposes; which in turn creates a public obligation to guard such property against such use or movement, lest injury come to the innocent.
There can be no more appropriate occasion to apply this doctrine than this case, where the owner is engaged in a public calling, performable only upon the public streets by a public license, and his car negligently maims a man doing a necessary public duty upon .those streets.
As the Lord Chancellor of England recently said when asking the aid of Parliament for the English courts in dealing with their automobile problem, “the motor car has within it possibilities of greater evil and unhappiness for the human race than any invention that has ever been discovered.” Buckmaster, Orator of Justice, 282 (Edited by James Johnston, 1932).
I think the judgment should be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.
GRONER, Associate Justice.
I agree in principle in the views expressed in Judge HITZ’S dissent, but I feel that to apply them here would be to assume the power and functions of the Legislature. I therefore concur in the conclusion reached by the court.