Court Opinion

ID: 9533024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:27:40.103579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:53.993197
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Groves
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Both the trial court and the majority of this court have reached conclusions of law by resolving factual issues which should have been submitted to the jury. Examples are found in the following quotations from the majority opinion:
“... the defendant was driving the plaintiff between her home and work pursuant to their existing agreement. ...” “The two dollars paid by the plaintiff covered her transportation to and from work whether they went by the usual route or by some route adopted by agreement of the parties on the day of the accident.”
“There was no change in their relationship....”
“Since the parties were admittedly proceeding home pursuant to that agreement____”
At the time the plaintiff inquired of the defendant as to whether the defendant would drive the plaintiff to *236Stapleton Airport, the plaintiff offered to pay the defendant for this trip. The defendant stated that she would be willing to transport the plaintiff to the airfield and refused compensation. The defendant testified that she made the trip as a favor and that she did not feel that it was necessarily a part of the to-and-from-work transportation agreement.
The parties lived several miles west of their place of employment. The airport is several miles northeast of the place of employment. As stated in the majority opinion, in going to the airfield the parties were proceeding in an almost directly opposite direction from that customarily taken on the trip home. The majority opinion is quite liberal in its finding of fact that they were “on the way home.”
The majority opinion makes a finding that the airport trip was a part of the contract. In my opinion there is another factual issue in the case, which is whether there was an inducement to the defendant which amounted to payment for the airport trip. In Folkers v. Brohardt, 142 Colo. 407, 352 P.2d 792, no contract existed between the driver of the car and the passenger. However, the rule there enunciated is applicable here. A portion of the opinion in that case reads as follows:
“The rule is generally adhered to in most jurisdictions that a mere incidental benefit resulting to a driver from transportation provided a passenger is not sufficient to withdraw the protection afforded by the guest statute. The benefit received by the driver must have been given under circumstances indicating that it induced the driver to provide the transportation to the passenger.
“Reduced to its essence the evidence discloses that three men, interested in the same business activities, after business hours, spent a couple of hours together, having some drinks. They then decided to have dinner together and the defendant Brohardt offers to pay for the dinner and invites the other two men to ride with him to a *237neighboring town to partake of the meal at a particular restaurant. This falls far short of establishing any ‘inducement’ amounting to ‘payment’ to the car driver within the meaning of the guest statute.
“Any incidental anticipated business benefit which Brohardt might possibly receive from this social contact cannot be held, as a matter of law, to be the motivating cause of the presence of Folkers in the automobile at the time of the accident.”
From the evidence of the instant case, a reasonable man could have concluded that there was sufficient inducement involved to constitute a “payment” to the defendant for the trip to Stapleton Field; and another reasonable man could have concluded to the contrary and that there was a mere incidental benefit resulting to the defendant. This issue, as well as that as to whether the airport trip was included in the basic agreement, should have been submitted to the jury under appropriate instructions.
Mr. Justice Kelley has authorized me to state that he joins in this dissent.