Court Opinion

ID: 9591893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:08:39.885038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:31.133827
License: Public Domain

(dissenting). This case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial because the trial court did not properly instruct the jury.
Plaintiff requested that the jury be instructed:
“9. Now, Members of the jury, as has been shown by the testimony, Plaintiff, Doris M. Vanderah was a passenger in an automobile operated by her husband. There has been some testimony that her husband was negligent in the operation of his automobile. In that regard, our law is very clear. I charge you that any negligence on the part of Doris M. Vanderah’s driver, cannot and must not be imputed *662to Doris M. Vanderah, the passenger. Bricker v. Green, 313 Mich 218, 163 ALR 697 [1946].
“10. Members of the jury, I instruct you that if you find that the collision occurred as a result of the combined negligence of the Defendants, and Plaintiff’s driver, Robert W. Vanderah, then you would still be required to bring back a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff, Doris M. Vanderah. In other words, if you find that Robert W. Vanderah was guilty of the same negligence which contributed to the collision, but you also find that Defendants, Edward Z. Olah and Geraldine J. Olah were also negligent and contributed to the happening of the accident, then it would be your duty to return a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff and against the Defendant. Johnson v. Narmore, 1 Mich App 160 [1965] , Stabler v. Copeland, 304 Mich 1 [1942], Bishop v. Plumb, 363 Mich 87 [1961], Klenke v. Russell, 9 Mich App 409 [1968], and 378 Mich 491 [1966] .”
The instruction given was:
“The plaintiff must also prove that the negligence of the defendant was a proximate cause of the occurrence which produced her injuries and damages. Now, there may be more than one proximate cause. There are two cars in an accident. They both may be guilty of causing it, and both of them may be a proximate cause, so there can be more than one proximate cause.”
The plaintiff was entitled to the gist of the instruction requested. The instruction given did not cover it and hence was inadequate.
The opinions for affirmance are both premised on the erroneous notion that the pleaded and tried issue of contributory negligence consisted of the plaintiff’s voluntarily riding with her husband knowing he was intoxicated.
*663That issue was neither pleaded nor tried.
The contributory negligence pleaded consisted of 1) plaintiff’s asserted failure to warn her driver of an approaching vehicle and 2) her encouraging him to drive recklessly “knowing he was intoxicated”.
The trial court handled this matter properly when, at the conclusion of proofs, he instructed the jury that the contributory negligence pleaded had not been proved.
In my view, apart from the fact that it has nothing to do with this case, the doctrine espoused in the opinions of my Brothers for affirmance holds an ominous portent.
To say that a passenger voluntarily and knowingly riding with a drunken driver may by that fact be determined to be guilty of contributory negligence is bad logic and bad law.
The Restatement of Torts 2d, § 466 labels this form of “contributory negligence” as “voluntary assumption of risk”. 8 Am Jur 2d, Automobiles and Highway Traffic, pp 94-95, “§ 537. Riding with intoxicated driver” sets forth a rule that the passenger in such circumstance cannot recover, either on the theory that he is guilty of contributory negligence or has; assumed the risk of injury.
I see no contribution to our jurisprudence either by disinterring “assumption of risk” from the grave of Felgner v Anderson, 375 Mich 23 (1965), or by overruling the line of cases cited in Cooks on v Humphrey, 355 Mich 296 (1959), which held that contributory negligence had to be causally connected to the injury.
Even if my Brothers would bar this plaintiff for “assuming the risk” — the risk she assumed was of the injuries which flowed from her drunken driver’s *664negligence. She did not assume the risk of the defendant’s negligence.
As far as her negligence in voluntarily and knowingly riding with a drunk driver is concerned such negligence cannot be causally connected with the accident and hence cannot properly be described as contributory negligence.
I would reverse for new trial and award costs to plaintiff.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and Adams, J., concurred with T. G-. Kavanagh, J.