Court Opinion

ID: 9668970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:34:38.558951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:50.737983
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear
Tomlinson, Justice.
The petition to rehear is quite conservatively presented. Largely, it is a reiteration of that formerly urged upon the Court with additional authorities cited and, in some instances, quoted in part. This response might follow the same pattern and cite additional cases which support its conclusion in this matter. All this will be of no assistance in disposing of this petition to rehear. Suffice it to say, in this respect, this Court’s opinion affirmatively recognized it as a fact that the conclusion it had reached was the minority view in so far as the cases in this country now appear in the reports.
This petition to rehear is, in one sense, strongly fortified by the opinion of one of our Associates disagreeing *68with the conclusion reached by the other four Justices. This ably presented dissenting- opinion, after recognizing that there are opinions of various universally respected State Courts of last resort in this country which take the same view of this case as has this Court’s majority opinion, then concludes with the rather unusual, under the circumstances, statement that the majority opinion “has reached a result that simply cannot be justified in the light of every day experience and consistency in administration of law”. Consideration of this assertion in the minority opinion will be a full response to the insistences reiterated in the petition to rehear.
What the majority opinion holds is that reasonable minds may differ as to whether the negligence of the automobile thief, whereby these complainants were injured, was an act within the reasonable anticipation of Mr. Wood, the owner of the stolen automobile, at the time he violated the statute and left his automobile parked and unattended with the key in the ignition on a heavily traveled metropolitan street. Hence, the majority concluded, as has a minority of State Courts of last resort in this country, that it became at least a jury question as to whether this intervening act of the thief was within the reasonable anticipation of Mr. Wood at the time he violated the statute and left this car in the condition stated.
As the majority of this Court views the question stated, its opinion does not change the existing law. It simply applies existing law to the changed circumstances with reference to the operation, etc., to automobiles upon the streets and highways of this State. The recognition of these changed conditions and the applicability of the law, as applied to automobiles, with reference to such changes *69is, as stated by tbe text writer, “a tribute to the adaptability and elasticity of the common law”. 5 American Jurisprudence, Automobiles, Section 162, page 594.
We no longer have a situation wherein the automobile traffic is comparatively light. To the contrary, for the past several years, the increase in the automobile traffic upon our streets and highways has consistently and continuously much increased. And the speed of these instruments, capable of great harm when improperly used, has likewise so consistently and continuously increased; thereby increasing the danger to the public by improper operation of automobiles in driving them over our streets and highways.
The leaving of the key in the ignition of this automobile while parked upon a heavily traveled street amounted in fact to an open invitation to a thief to enter it and drive away. It made the process of so stealing the automobile without detection as easy as it could possibly have been made.
Is it not, therefore, at least a jury question as to whether the owner of this automobile should have anticipated that a thief, observing the key in the ignition, would step in and drive away without having to commit any act which might arouse the suspicion of others who might be there on the street at the time?
It is common knowledge that a person possessed of the characteristics which would cause him to thus steal an automobile is a person who is irresponsible and totally devoid of regard for the rights and safety of others who might be using the street at the same time that he, the thief, was operating it in heavy traffic. Is it not at least a jury question as to whether such negligent owner of the *70automobile should have anticipated that a person so stealing bis car would operate it in tbe reckless and dangerous manner in wbicb tbis tbief was operating tbis car at tbe time of tbe accident in question? Is it not at least a jury question as to whether tbe owner should anticipate that such a tbief would drive tbe car in tbe very manner in wbicb this tbief was driving tbis car at tbe time ?
It is stated in tbe text of 5 American Jurisprudence, Automobiles, Section 164, page 596, that:
“Tbe fact that other happenings causing or contributing toward an injury intervened between tbe violation of a statute or ordinance and tbe injury does not necessarily make tbe result so remote that no action can be maintained. The test is to be found not in the number of intervening events or agents, but in their character and in the natural and probable connection between tbe wrong done and tbe injurious consequence.”
In tbe text of 158 A.L.R. at page 1377, quoting from the New York case of Tierney v. New York Dugan Bros., 288 N.Y. 16, 41 N.E.2d 161, 140, A.L.R. 534, there appears this statement.
“Whether tbe owner or operator of a motor vehicle, in leaving it unattended in a public street, was thereby guilty of negligence such as will render him liable for an injury to a third person caused by a stranger starting tbe automobile is usually a question of fact for tbe determination of the jury, in light of all tbe surrounding facts and circumstances and under proper instructions from tbe court.”
Tbe case of Ross v. Hartman, 78 U.S. App.D.C. 217, 139 F.2d 14, as quoted at pages 1383-1384 of 158 A.L.R., goes so far as to bold this:
*71“But where the driver of a track left it, in violation of a traffic ordinance, unattended in a public alley, with the ignition unlocked and the key in the switch, outside a garage to be taken inside by the garage attendant for night storage, without notifying anyone thereof, and an unknown person drove the truck away and negligently ran over a person, it was held that the negligence of the truck owner and its causation of the injury was too clear for submission to a jury, the fact that the inter-meddler’s conduct was itself a proximate cause of the injury, and was probably criminal, being immaterial.”
Quotations to like effect might be multiplied in this opinion, but such would serve no useful purpose. Therefore, the minority opinion, we think, is in error in its assertion that the opinion reached by the majority is one which “simply cannot be justified in the light of every day experience”. Nor can that minority opinion be correct in its statement that the result reached “simply cannot be justified” with “consistency in administration of law”.
As a matter of fact, the majority opinion quotes from the previous opinion of our own Court of Appeals (Eastern Division) of Morris v. Bolling, 31 Tenn.App. 577, 583, 218 S.W.2d 754, holding exactly as the majority opinion held in this case. It considered the question with which it was confronted analogous to the situation with which this Court is here confronted. This Court denied application for certiorari in that case. It is true that in the later case of Teague v. Pritchard (Western Division), 38 Tenn. App. 686, 279 S.W.2d 706, quoted in the majority opinion, and wherein the violation of a statute was not involved, the Court of Appeals reached a contrary conclusion. In *72so doing, it probably overlooked Morris v. Bolling, supra, or considered tbe case different in that it did not bave to take into consideration a statute enacted for tbe safety of tbe public as in tbe Bolling case, and in tbe case at bar.
The Court is satisfied with tbe conclusion which it reached in this case. Accordingly, it denies tbe petition to rehear with Mr. Justice Sweptson dissenting.