Court Opinion

ID: 9830577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:17:43.051898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:24.464309
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant H. Prince, in his motion for a rehearing, earnestly insists that this court was in error in overruling each of their nine assignments of error, and in their motion to reassert the same propositions contended for in their very able and exhaustive brief filed in this case. We have again reviewed the questions presented, but reach the same conclusions as in our former opinion, and, but for the fact that some of the statements made in the opinion are not as clearly stated as they might have been, we will further state some of the conclusions reached:
Appellants’ contention, ■ as stated in their motion for rehearing, is that the fact of ownership of an automobile will not be a ground of liability, nor will the fact that such automobile. was being used by the immediate *830family of a defendant be a ground of liability. That such use by the members of the immediate family might be a circumstance to be taken into consideration by a jury in determining the question of agency, but would constitute no independent ground of liability. If appellant’s statement contained all or even the salient facts shown in the record, we would concede the correctness of his proposition. The record shows, as stated in the original opinion, some facts additional, which ap: pellants seem to have either overlooked or deemed unimportant. The courts in many eases have held, as stated by appellant, in his motion, that if a member of the family, although operating the family vehicle, was operating it in his own behalf, and not in any of the uses for which the car was furnished by the father, and used without his consent, the father would not be liable for damage caused while being so used, on the ground solely that the car was a family ear and that the driver was a member of the family. There would be two essential elements absent — agency and the business of the father. In our original opinion, the undisputed evidence stated in the opinion discloses the facts that appellant had furnished the car as a family ear; that appellant, his wife, and Harry constituted the family; that appellant knew that Harry was learning to run the car on pleasure drives for the family, and made no protest; and that at the time of the accident the car was being used for the purpose for which the car was furnished by appellant. The chauffeur was employed by appellant, and, if the chauffeur had himself been driving the car, and in the use of the family at the time of the accident, there could be no question of the correctness of the charge, as to the chauffeur. The only question presented arises on the agency of Harry: Do the undisputed facts disclose that Harry was the agent of appellant, so that the fact of his agency could be assumed as a fact proved?
We need not here more fully restate the evidence or the facts which the undisputed evidence disclose. It would not only be unnecessary, but improper, for the trial court in the charge to have stated to the jury the undisputed evidence, or the facts established by the undisputed evidence. If, under the undisputed evidence, Harry was his father’s agent or servant in operating the car at the time of the accident, whether his agency arose independently of the chauffeur or was imputed to him through the chauffeur or the fact of his mother’s presence in the car and her necessarily implied consent to his driving the car, it would be immaterial. The paragraph of the court’s charge complained of could have assumed the fact of his agency, and need not have stated that the evidence established his agency, any more than it would have been necessary to tell the jury that the chauffeur was the agent or servant of appellant. It is true that agency is a question of fact to be found by the jury like any other fact; but if the elements which enter into and constitute agency are admitted, or the undisputed evidence disclose it, the fact of agency may be assumed or stated as a fact just as any other fact. Do the facts necessarily show Harry’s agency? In the case of Allen v. Bland, 168 S. W. 38, in which a writ of error was refused, the Court of Civil Appeals for the Seventh District quoted with approval the case of Birch v. Abercrombie, 74 Wash. 486, 133 Pac. 1020, 50 L. R. A. (N. S.) 59, as follows:
“It (the automobile) was being used in furtherance of the very purpose of his ownership and by one of the persons by whom he intended that purpose should be carried out. It was in every just sense being Used in his business by his agent. There is no possible distinction either in sound reason, sound morals, or sound law, between her legal relation to the parent and that of a chauffeur employed by him for the same purpose. The fact that the agency was not a business agency, nor the service a remunerative service, has no bearing upon the question of liability. In running his vehicle, she_ was carrying out the general purpose for which he owned it and kept it. No other element is essential to invoke the rule respondeat superior.”
Again, in the same case:
“It (the charge then being commented on) declared the use of the machine for the purpose for which it was owned, by the person authorized by the owner to so use it, a use in the owner’s business. It seems too plain for cavil that a father, who furnished a vehicle for the customary conveyance of the members of his family, makes their conveyance by the vehicle his affair — that is, his business — and any one driving the vehicle for that purpose with his consent, * * “ express or implied, whether a member of his family or another, is his agent. The fact that only one member of the family was in the vehicle at the time is in no sound sense a differentiating circumstance abrogating the agency. It was within the general purpose of the ownership that any member of the family should use it and the agency is present in the use of it by one as well as by all.”
In Stowe v. Morris, 147 Ky. 386, 144 S. W. 52, 39 D. R. A. (N. S.) 224 — a case somewhat analogous in facts to the case before us — the Supreme Court of Kentucky, speaking through Justice Winn, uses this language:
“The car, at the time of the accident, was driven by Robert Stowe, the 18 year old son of the appellant. With him in the car were his sister (and others named) friends of his sister. * * * The car was kept by the father for the comfort and pleasure of his family, including his son and daughter. They had the right to use it as often as they liked.”
The court held that the son, in using the car for the pleasure of himself and sister, with whom were friends, was a servant or agent of the father, not performing an independent service of his own, but the business of the father, making his father liable for his negligence in driving the car. The liability was not put on the ground of non-age of the son, but on the ground that the use of the car was in the furtherance of the father’s business and for which the car was used.
*831We construe • Daily v. Maxwell, 152 Mo. App. 415, 133 S. W. 351, to State tile same principal, that is, that, regardless of the age of the sop running the family vehicle for the pleasure of the family, with the consent of the father and within the scope of the family uses, would constitute the one operating the ear the agent and servant of the father. In our original opinion, we stated that the fact of the agency of Harry would be imputed to him through the chauffeur; that is, that the chauffeur was simply operating the ear through Harry, and that with the knowledge and consent of appellant, the trial court, in the paragraph complained of, may have assumed the agency of Harry on the ground stated in the cases above referred to. In the Allen v. Bland Case, above referred to, the court, after quoting from the Birch v. Aber-crombie Case and each of the others to which we have referred, uses this language:
“We think the authorities quoted above announce the correct rule of liability, and they are cited and adopted as announcing the law applicable to the facts of this case.”
We think there can be no question of the agency of Harry Prince under the undisputed facts, and adhere to our former ruling. If we are not in error in the view above expressed, we think the trial court correctly stated the law in the other paragraphs of the charge to which appellants’ motion applies.
.We overrule the motion.