Court Opinion

ID: 9726768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:07:24.883796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:30.560476
License: Public Domain

. Black, J.
(dissenting). Building obiter on this-sweeping- dictum—
“Assumption of risk, of course, is a defense to negligence, whether it be ordinary ‘mere’ negligence, or such negligence ‘plus a wilful and wanton disregard for public safety,’ which go to make up the statutory ‘gross negligence or wilful and • wanton misconduct’ required under the guest passenger act”; ...
the Court affirms another judgment entered on motion in a jury-tried négligence case. Holding that the testimony presents a jury question of liability, I must dissent.
The quoted declaration is too broad, either for textbook or the case before us. The citations proffered in support (Stevens v. Stevens, 355 Mich 363, and CLS 1956, § 257.401 [Stat Ann 1952 Rev § 9-.2101]) arguably war upon it.1 And our remaining precedents (Gibbard v. Cursan, 225 Mich 311; Teeter v. Pugsley, 319 Mich 508; Davis v. Hollowell, 326 Mich 673 [15 ALR2d 1160]) flatly deny its application to a case where, as here, the plaintiff guest has made out a case of causally connected wilful and wanton misconduct.
*511The defense of assumption of risk originated from the contractual relation of master and servant. When judges use the expression in tort actions brought under conventional guest-host statutes, they employ it loosely for what it really is — contributory fault of equal degree. It is a “form of negligence” .(see quotation from Restatement below) some courts have- brought forth to meet 'that situation in guest-host cases where the guest is said-to be equally at fault with the host. So far, however, and I submit the cited Michigan cases as proof,2 this Court has properly refused to say that a plaintiff-guest can, -legally, assume the risk of reckless and wanton, or wilful and wanton, misconduct. We do apply Restatement’s rule (2 Torts, § 482, subsection 2, ,p 1262), but that doctrine is not a matter of assumption of risk at all. It is one of contributory misconduct occasioned by the unreasonably reckless exposure of oneself to injury, and it would be a rare case where application thereof could or should be. made as a matter of law. All this finds support in Restatement’s “comment,” quoted and applied in Davis, supra, at page 680, vis-.
“The plaintiff is not barred even by that form of negligence which is called voluntary assumption of the risk. In order that the plaintiff’s conduct may bar him’from recovery, it is necessary that he not only know of the defendant’s reckless conduct, but *512also realize the gravity of the risk involved therein so that he is not only unreasonable but reckless in exposing himself to it.”
If we are to graft the defense of assumption of risk into the root or stem of the general law of negligence, may not the next defendant motorist, when sued by the risk-assuming guest passenger riding in another car, employ it in bar — equally with the host driver? (Perhaps, though, in such instance, the defense will enter court under a new label, say “imputed negligence” arising from “joint enterprise,” lately considered in Sherman v. Korff, 353 Mich 387 [14 NCCA3d 149].) Where a guest is killed in causal circumstances as now confront us, will not his representatives and dependent beneficiaries be held as having vicariously “assumed the risk” of that which forms the basis of their complaint? Would not the present majority opinion be one for reversal, rather than affirmance, if Mr. Waltanen had been killed that Saturday night and had left a widow and several little children as such risk-assumers ? My answer is that this Court, itself, is assuming some unconsidered risks with the handing down of these opinions.
I prefer to follow those decisions, harmonizing as they do with Davis, to which the annotator refers (15 ALR2d 1165,1172) as applying the doctrine of “comparative misconduct”:
“Thus, while the cases are uniform in denying recovery, in a proper case, where the guest has knowledge that the driver has been drinking, they are not uniform in the rationale of their conclusion. Some courts hold that the act of the guest in riding with the driver under such circumstances constitutes contributory negligence barring recovery. Other cases state that contributory negligence is no defense to such actions but apply the doctrine of assumption of risk. While in other jurisdictions, it has been held *513that if the misconduct of the plaintiff, was of an approximately equal degree to that of the defendant or substantially contributed to the subsequent accident, the guest is barred from recovery. The latter defense is referred to in this annotation as the ‘comparative misconduct’ doctrine.”
Validity of this motion for directed verdict should he tested by ascertaining whether, on favorable view, Mi*. Waltanen should have anticipated — and acted in time to avoid — “the aggravated tortious conduct herein complained of” (quotation from Davis, p 681); in other words whether as a matter of law he was equally at fault with Mr. Wiitala. From that postulate I proceed to point out that the defendant driver assuredly was guilty of causative “aggravated tortious conduct” and that no guest— sober or suffering the Schenley shakes — should he held (by judge distinguished from jury) as having recklessly exposed himself to the incredible combination of additional reckless acts such driver performed after his car left the Phillips gas station.3 The previous occasions of driving (while guest and host were intoxicated) at foolhardy rates of speed, produced a top pace of 75 to 85 miles per hour. This particular evening the causative rate was stepped up to 95 to 100 miles per hour; an increase of velocity *514to apptoximately 150 feet per second. And it was not shown by the defendant burden-bearer4 (or by any witness for that matter) that he attempted, on any occasion prior to leaving the Phillips station that ■final night, to do what in combination made up the immediate cause of this tragic accident, that is, attempt to drive at 95 to 100 miles per hour with one hand while the other hand and his gaze were — momentarily even — concentrated on the radio mechanism.
Does this not bring into play the same reasoning which, in Davis, held the real question to be one of fact? Davis concludes (p 681):
“While it is common knowledge that one who operates a motor vehicle after drinking liquor is more apt to be negligent than one who has not imbibed, it does not follow that wilful and wanton misconduct on his part is always foreseeable so that one who enters it will have recklessly subjected himself to the aggravated tortious conduct herein complained of. The rule, advocated by defendants that reckless exposure of oneself to risk would bar recovery, would not be applicable to the facts of the instant case. Viewing the testimony in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, she had no reason to anticipate the conduct that occurred. There was not sufficient indication of physical or mental incapacity on the part of defendant Douglas which would forewarn of the events that transpired.”
In this case I would scrape off the opaque and not-yet-hardened word-varnish some judges have ap*515plied uniformly over the expression “assumption of risk” and the rule Restatement (“Torts-Negligence”) treats in chapter 17 (“Contributory Negligence”) under the heading “Reckless Conduct.”  The former has no place in negligence cases such as confront us here. In essence, it continues in effect from legal start to legal finish (through care and want of care of both parties) of a contractual relationship. The latter is a solidly established precept of the common law of such torts as are committed in the course of noncontracted relations. No statute gave it life, and no legislatively prescribed rule—of highway safety or otherwise—has enlarged its limited application. Its defensive scope has never been broadened—in this State at least—to the rubbery, and- never, accurately definable doctrine of assumed risk. It is available, to a defendant guilty' of causally reckless misconduct when, and only when that defendant— bearing the burden, I repeat—is able to prove that the plaintiff did know from previous experience or plain threat that he would be apt to misconduct himself as causally shown; that the plaintiff realized the gravity of the risk involved therein, and that such plaintiff was both unreasonable and reckless in.exposing himself to such misconduct. This is not “assumption of risk.” It is, when proven, contributory fault of equal degree. And the question of presence or absence of such contributory fault is, from its very specifications, a natural one for jury determination.
I .would reverse and remand for new trial.

 Stevens, construing and applying the statute in corresponding circumstances of mutual intoxication and similar high speed (90 to 95 -miles ,per hour)., holds without reservation that it — the statute — . imposes liability where the driver’s conduct “manifests -a high degree of danger, a manifest probability .that, harm will result therefrom, and an utter disregard of the probable consequences” (p 371),

 Note, in Davis, the placing in quotation marks of the expression “assumption of risk” (p 680) and the Court’s care in confining the issue to one of unreasonably “reckless exposure” instead of the uncertainties of that which belongs properly in the law of master and servant. The writer of American Jurisprudence tells us (35 Am Jur, Master and Servant, § 293, p 715) what all scholars and quasi-scholars know:
“Few subjects of the law have a more obscure and complicated terminology than that appertaining to the doctrine of assumption of risk. Even the most casual investigation discloses a perplexing and often quite unintelligible array of propositions. Commentators usually have concluded that a reconciliation of all the statements -relating to the subject is an impossible task.”

 Plaintiff testified:
“Q. Now, after you left the parking lot, would you tell us how Mr. Wiitala was driving?
“A. Well, his driving was O. K. first, Andrew — I mean Mr. Wisti— and then he started driving fast as we were near where the accident happened.
“Q. About how fast would you estimate he was traveling just prior to the accident?
“A. I -would say about 95, and maybe 100, miles an hour.
"Q. Now, would you describe what happened?
. .“A. Well, Mr. Wiitala was tuning the car radio and he had his left hand on the steering wheel and was looking-down at the ear radio and he was tuning in this hillbilly station on Saturday night, and he was looking at the ear radio.
“Q. Then what happened?
“A. That’s what caused him to lose control of the car.”

 The stipulated joint appendix shows that the affirmative defense of “assumption of risk” did not appear in this .ease until defendant moved for a directed verdict. Defendant did not plead the defense, either as assumed risk or unreasonably reckless exposure to known and anticipatory dangers, and no mention or suggestion thereof appears in the trial judge’s detailed and comprehensive pretrial summary. That defendant should have pleaded the defense, in some form, as required by Court Rule No 23, § 3 '(1945), appears clearly from the recent annotation entitled “Necessity and manner of pleading assumption of risk as a defense” (59 ALR2d 239).