Court Opinion

ID: 9755905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:58:45.122729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:12.805340
License: Public Domain

Condon, J.,
dissenting. This decision is based upon a construction of the statute that, in my opinion, is not within the reasonable intendment of its language. I am persuaded to this view by its legislative and judicial history, the mischief it was designed to remedy, and above all by the content of the statute itself. In such light I am convinced that it was intended to apply only to defendants. Therefore, I dissent.
Despite the fact that the statute is section 1, article XIX of chapter 2595, public laws of 1950, it is not of recent origin. It has been on the statute books in its present form since 1940. Originally enacted in a substantially different form as sec. 3, chap. 1040, public laws of 1927, it was judicially construed in 1928 as applying to anyone using the owner’s car with his consent. Guerin v. Mongeon, 49 R. I. 414. The next year thereafter the legislature repealed it and *42enacted in its place sec. 10, chap. 1429, public laws of 1929. This new act expressly excluded from its operation a bailee or lessee of the owner.
In Rogers v. Hebe Co., 52 R. I. 274, 275, we said: “The •statute does not make a bailee the agent of the owner.” And we further indicated that it did not make as drastic a change in the common law as did chap. 1040, public laws of 1927. Later in Ford v. Dorcus, 54 R. I. 1, 3, we squarely so held and stated that sec. 3, chap. 1040, public laws of 1927, as construed in Guerin v. Mongeon, supra, “evidently imposed a greater liability upon an owner of a motor vehicle than was intended by the legislature for, at its next session, it repealed said section 3 and enacted section 10 above quoted. This new section differed materially from the section which it superseded and it must be presumed that the legislature thereby intended to establish a rule different from that previously announced by the court.” We again pointed out that difference in Emond v. Fallon, 56 R. I. 419. And as recently as Gallo v. American Egg Co., 76 R. I. 450, 455, we said that under the present statute as formerly numbered “an owner of an automobile is not responsible for the conduct of his bailee.”
As thus construed sec. 10 remained unchanged until 1933 when it was replaced by chap. 2046, public laws of 1933. In Gemma v. Rotondo, 62 R. I. 293, decided in 1939, we held that chapter entirely amended sec. 10 and substituted for it a substantially new act. However, the legislature thereupon repealed chap. 2046 the following year and enacted chap. 867, public laws of 1940, which is now section 1, art. XIX, chap. 2595, public laws of 1950, herein under review. Its first sentence is a reenactment word for word of sec. 10, chap. 1429, public laws of 1929. And the second sentence is taken almost verbatim from chap. 2046, public laws of 1933.
This somewhat checkered history of the statute and the cases in which, in its varied phases, it has been judicially construed give not the slightest inkling that the legislature *43was attempting to alter the common law status of a plaintiff in an action to establish defendant’s liability in tort. On the contrary the original form of the statute, the subsequent legislative amendments, and the opinions of this court construing the same suggest that the sole concern of the legislature was to alter the common law requirements for establishing liability of the owner of a motor vehicle for damage caused by its negligent operation on the public highway by another.
This concern was strikingly evident in the legislature’s prompt repeal of sec. 3, chap. 1040, when they were advised by this court’s opinion in the Guerin case that the language of that section made an owner liable for the conduct of anyone who was operating the car with the owner’s consent. •And there was the same prompt reaction when the full import of chap. 2046 was made known in the Gemma case.
In each instance the legislature showed that it was concerned about the plight of plaintiffs in the trial of actions for negligence against owners of motor vehicles involved in highway accidents while said vehicles were being operated by persons other than the owners. Such plight resulted from the rule of the common law requiring the plaintiff in such a case to prove that at the time of the accident the operator was operating the vehicle as the servant or agent of the owner and within the scope of such employment or agency. It was often impossible for plaintiffs to meet those requirements with the resulting mischief that defendants escaped liability without having to present their cases to a jury. To correct such mischief the legislature formulated a new rule of agency to be applied to defendants in cases of that nature. But in no instance did it give any indication that it intended to abrogate the common law beyond giving a remedy to correct that particular mischief affecting plaintiffs. In fact it does not appear that defendants were ever placed in a similar plight by the common law. No case of that kind has been cited to us nor have I found any in our reports *44where defendants have been thereby placed at a disadvantage in defending plaintiffs’ claims against them.
Such, therefore, being the sole mischief arising from the application of the existing law the statute should be construed as intended to correct only that mischief and nothing more. “The legislature may not be presumed to make any innovation upon the common law further than is required by the mischief to be remedied.” Psota v. Long Island R. R., 246 N. Y. 388. Since the statute under review here is in derogation of the common law it should be construed strictly. Gaspee Cab Inc. v. McGovern, 51 R. I. 247. Unless it is otherwise clear that the legislature intended to go beyond the immediate object of the legislation it must be presumed that it did not so intend. Bloomfield v. Brown, 67 R. I. 452; Pickering v. Pickering, 64 R. I. 112. The legislative intent is to be gathered from the purpose for which the statute was passed. State v. Hudson, 55 R. I. 141. In my opinion the object of the statute here was to enable a plaintiff to have the jury pass upon the question of a defendant’s liability for the conduct of the operator of his car. In the absence of a clear intent of the legislature to derogate further from the common law the instant statute should not be extended beyond such object. Langlois v. Dunn Worsted Mills, 25 R. I. 645.
The content of the statute, I submit, also supports the view that it was not intended to apply to plaintiff. In the first place its title “Civil Liability of Owners and Operators of Motor Vehicles” gives an indication of such intent. The use of the word “liability” to describe the purpose of the section with reference to owners and operators of motor vehicles on the public highways is significant. That word has been said to be appropriate to express an obligation sounding in tort, Boston Elevated Ry. v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, 323 Mass. 562, and that its common meaning is to pay a debt owed. Grand Trunk Western R. R. v. Boyd, 321 Mich. 693. “Generally speaking, the *45word ‘liability’ expresses some form of obligation, and it is a particularly apt term to state an obligation to pay money because of a disregard of the requirements of a contract, as well as on account of tortious conduct, or because of the existence of a judgment.” 53 C.J.S., Liability, p. 17.
Of course the title of an act cannot control its construction, but it may properly be considered in aid thereof. Armour & Co. v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R., 41 R. I. 361. It seems unusually helpful here especially when it is considered in connection with the second clause of the first sentence of the section relating to evidence of financial responsibility on the part of the operator. Certainly the language of the law does not ordinarily speak of the liability of a plaintiff. On the contrary it is customarily associated with a defendant’s obligation to respond in damages. And it would seem that such was the legislative intent here as shown by the legislature’s exemption from the section of an owner whose operator had furnished evidence of financial responsibility. I submit it is a strained construction that applies such language to include plaintiffs.
If we examine the first sentence of the section as a whole more closely, we shall find that it indicates legislative contemplation. of an owner’s duty possibly to pay compensation for an injury caused by the negligent operation of his car by another on the public highway. In other words the legislature foresees him as a possible defendant resisting a claim for damages on the ground that under the common law he is not liable because plaintiff presented no evidence that the defendant’s car was being operated by his servant or agent at the time of the accident. The first clause of the first sentence strips him of that defense and makes the operator, who is not his lessee or bailee, the owner’s statutory agent, if the car was being operated with his consent. But if he can show that the operator has furnished evidence of financial responsibility in accordance with the statute he escapes the impact of the section by virtue of the second *46clause, and retains his common-law defenses. All thought of the owner as plaintiff is entirely absent from the statute when viewed in this light.
Now if we consider the first and second sentences of the section together as integral and related parts of the section as a whole, and I submit we should, the above view is strongly confirmed. By the second sentence the legislative intent implicit in the first is made crystal clear. Here the legislature removes all doubt, if there ever was any, that it is legislating with reference to the owner as a defendant. Having deprived him of his common-law defenses it now reverses the burden of proof and requires him to plead and prove absence of consent if he relies upon that fact as a defense. But the majority state that these two sentences are “clearly divisible” and “severable” and, as I understand their opinion, should not be read together as parts of an integrated whole paragraph. Only by thus divorcing them and reading the first as though the second did not exist can the construction that this is solely a defendant’s statute be avoided. For my part, what the legislature has so plainly joined together I must decline to put asunder.
In a number of jurisdictions statutes having some resemblance to ours have been variously construed. As authority for their construction the majority cite National Trucking & Storage Co. v. Driscoll, D. C., 64 A.2d 304. They state that the statute involved in that case “more nearly resembles ours than the others called to our attention.” Such statute is quoted on page 305 of that court’s opinion. In my opinion it bears slight resemblance to our statute now under review. However, it does more nearly resemble in some respects P. L. 1927, chap. 1040, sec. 3. But such section, as I have hereinbefore noted, was repealed in 1929 because it was too sweeping in that by this court’s construction it included anyone who operated the owner’s car with his consent. Our legislature did not intend to include a lessee or bailee of the owner. In the above-cited case the District of Columbia *47court construed their statute to apply to bailees. Furthermore from their quotation of said statute it does not appear that it contains any language comparable to the provisions of our statute with reference to evidence of the operator’s financial responsibility or to the second sentence relating to the pleading and proof by the owner of absence of consent. On the whole, therefore, that case, in my opinion, furnishes no support for a like construction of the wholly different language of our statute.
On the other hand plaintiff has cited three cases which hold that statutes substantially similar in some respects to the one in the above-cited case from the District of Columbia apply only to defendants. My colleagues dismiss these cases because in their opinion they are not “based upon a statute such as ours.” Certainly, that is true, but the statutes in those cases are no more unlike our statute than the statute in the above-cited National Trucking & Storage Co. v. Driscoll case. I do not rely upon those cases because of any identity between the statutes there involved and ours but because 'in general such cases support the view that statutes of this kind are to be construed strictly as applicable only to defendants unless their language necessarily implies that they are also applicable to plaintiffs.
Before concluding I must excuse this long dissent on the ground that I deem this question a most important one in the construction of statutes and especially a statute that derogates from the common law so radically as the instant statute. Of course the heavens will not fall because of the majority’s construction, but I apprehend unfortunate consequences may flow from it. There will be no net gain. For one thing I cannot conceive how highway safety will be promoted. Whether viewed as “one way” or “two ways” the statute contributes little or nothing to the attainment of that much desired goal. After all, it is designed chiefly to assure financial responsibility of operators and owners of motor vehicles, and only incidentally if at all to promote *48highway safety. Experience has shown that assurance of that kind does not decrease the hazards of the highway. States with compulsory automobile liability insurance do not appear to rank higher in that regard than states without it. In fact there is a school of thought which stoutly maintains that such insurance tends to retard progress toward greater care in the operation of motor vehicles on the highways. In any event if that is a legislative objective of the statute under review and the legislature deems that objective will be promoted by making such statute of universal application to plaintiffs as well as defendants the legislature should make its intention clear beyond question. ■ This court should not by liberal construction incorporate into the statute a policy or rule so radically derogating from the common law. Judicial legislation of that kind seldom if ever works for good. What seems to be so desirable and necessary to declare by judicial fiat today may all too soon return to plague us tomorrow. Thus is the court the architect of its own misfortunes. Prudence, if nothing else, suggests that we stay in our own domain and let the legislature wrestle with policies of state.
William A. Gunning, for plaintiff.
Edwards & Angelí, Edward F. Hindle, for defendant.