Court Opinion

ID: 9697117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:06:19.689454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:29.287213
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
concurring in part, and dissenting in part.
In concur in that portion of the majority opinion *135which holds that the evidence presented a jury question as to the contributory negligence of the plaintiff.
I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds that there was sufficient evidence of a joint venture between Reinwald and Virus to submit the issue of joint venture to the jury and thus permit the jury to impute the negligence of Reinwald to Virus.
The majority opinion concedes that the relationship of joint venturers depends largely upon the intent of the parties to the alleged venture. The undisputed evidence in this case was that Reinwald was a sharecropper tenant who lived on the farm and received one-third of the crops. Virus owned virtually all the equipment and bore all the expenses and both parties contributed labor. Each also had separate individual livestock operations on the farm. There was clearly no true sharing of profits or losses, but only a sharing of the crops.
The majority opinion concedes that in a joint venture each of the parties must have equal voice in performance and control of the operation and that there must be at least a sharing of profits. See Soulek v. City of Omaha, 140 Neb. 151, 299 N. W. 368. Other jurisdictions generally include the concept of losses as well as profits among the requirements of a joint venture. See, Vern Shutte & Sons v. Broadbent, 24 Utah 2d 415, 473 P. 2d 885; Hayes v. Killinger, 235 Ore. 465, 385 P. 2d 747.
I have found no case which holds that an ordinary crop share farm lease constitutes a joint venture. In 46 Am. Jur. 2d, Joint Ventures, § 19, p. 41, it is stated: “A contract which is nothing more than a lease of premises for rent payable in a share of the crops does not establish a joint venture. On the other hand, an agreement for carrying on farming operations which provides for a sharing of the expenses and of the profits is generally regarded as creating a joint venture.” The parties to the in*136formal oral agreement here, Reinwald and Virus, intended a share crop lease arrangement. The fact that it was informal was not unusual in view of the close relationship of the parties, which was almost that of father and son.
The majority opinion holds that where the informal arrangement for a farm operation makes it difficult to characterize the relationship as that of an employee and employer, or landowner and sharecropper, or as joint venturers, the jury may be permitted to determine whether there was a joint venture in spite of the fact that the parties did not intend it and the evidence does not support it. The only factual dispute of any sort as to the arrangement here was as to the extent or right of control of the farm operations as between Reinwald and Virus. The parties simply handled that by agreement. The right of control was not equal but it was not spelled out because there was no formal agreement. The evidence was insufficient to submit the issue of joint venture to the jury as a matter of law.
I have found no case holding that a landlord and tenant under a crop share lease are engaged in a joint venture and each vicariously liable for the negligence of the other in operating an automobile on any errand connected with the farm operation. Hundreds of farm families in Nebraska have similar informal arrangements of various kinds based on crop shares. This case is the first one to permit the extension of the doctrine of imputed negligence to such operations.
Clinton, J., joins in concurring in part and dissenting in part.