Court Opinion

ID: 9662361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:06:51.928459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:38.891074
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Wilson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this suit against the owner of an ambulance, plaintiff who was a passenger in the ambulance, seeks damages for personal injuries suffered from a collision between defendant’s ambulance and an automobile. The only question is whether or not the plaintiff is a “guest” of the owner of the vehicle within the terms of Art. 6701b, V.A.C.S. The trial court granted judgment for defendant upon motion for instructed verdict and this has been affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 273 S.W. 2d 455.
A Miss Bernice Coble, the fiance of the plaintiff, was examined by a doctor who determined that she should be taken immediately to a hospital in an ambulance. Plaintiff asked a nurse in the doctor’s office to call an ambulance and an ambulance was sent by defendant to pick up the patient. Miss Coble asked the plaintiff to ride in the ambulance with her. Plaintiff *101told the driver and the attendant that he was going to ride in the ambulance with Miss Coble, and they said that it would be all right. Miss Coble was placed on an ambulance cot and rolled into the vehicle. The plaintiff got in and sat on a small seat near the patient. En route to the hospital the ambulance struck another vehicle.
Section 1 of Article 6701b, V.A.C.S., is as follows:
“No person transported over the public highways of this State by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle as his guest without payment for such transportation, shall have a cause of action for damages against such owner or operator for injuries, death or loss, in case of accident, unless such accident shall have been intentional on the part of said owner or operator, or caused by his heedlessness or his reckless disregard of the rights of others.”
In order for this statute to govern the plaintiff must have been a guest of the owner of the motor vehicle “without payment for such transportation.”
We hold that Article 6701b has no application to the case at bar. There is not a Texas decision directly in point. The two out-of-state cases which seem to be nearest in point treat the question as one of intent in making the contract of hire. Rushing v. Mulehearn Funeral Home, Inc., Ct. App. La. 1941, 200 So. 52; Vogreg v. Shepard Ambulance Service, Inc., 1954, 44 Wash. 2d 528, 268 Pac. 2d 642.
Here an ambulance was hired by Miss Bernice Coble and the plaintiff was invited by her. He was not invited by the defendant but was the guest of Miss Coble who was paying the owner of the vehicle for the transportation. Under the facts of this case, a sick person who hires an ambulance for transportation certainly has a right to have someone ride with her in the ambulance. The purpose of Article 6701b is to prevent fradulent collusion between an insured and a guest. The situation at bar does not fall within the purpose of the statute.
The defendant relies upon such cases as Burt v. Lochausen, 151 Texas 289, 249 S.W. 2d 194, which holds that there must be a benefit to the operator of the vehicle which is shown to have been the motivating influence for furnishing the transportation. Here the hire of the vehicle was the motivating influence for furnishing the transportation, and Miss Coble, who had hired *102the vehicle, could, in the absence of some prohibition, take along plaintiff as her guest if she wanted to do so.
Accordingly the judgments of the Court of Civil Appeals and the trial court are both reversed and the case is remanded for another trial.
Opinion delivered July 27, 1955.