Court Opinion

ID: 9670150
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:15:56.248435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:02.855402
License: Public Domain

Thompson, J.
(dissenting) — I respectfully dissent. State v. Schultz, upon which the majority relies, is not in point. The decision there turned upon the wording of the statute, in which the first sentence made it unlawful for any person to sell or give beer to a minor, but the second sentence included the words “or any of his agents or employees” in providing for loss of permit. We *331held the two sentences taken together did not show the intent to make the owner criminally liable for acts' of his employees without his knowledge or direction. No such situation appears here.
The court instructed on the meaning of consent. It is difficult for me to see how a car could be driven by a nonowner who did not know that he either did or did n"ot have the owner’s consent. As I understand it, the defendant’s position was that he thought Frank was the owner, and he thought he had Frank’s consent. This situation seems much like that in State v. Dahnke, where the bartender sold liquor to a minor who exhibited a draft card in fact belonging to another person and so induced the seller to believe he was an adult. We held this not a proper defense; that the statute made the sale of liquor to a minor criminal regardless of whether the seller did not know of the minority or had reasonable grounds to think he was an adult. I do not read the statute here differently.
Other states which have considered statutes comparable to ours have not found intent or knowledge necessary. Murphy v. Commonwealth, Ky., 279 S.W.2d 767, 769; Taulbee v. Commonwealth, 304 Ky. 551, 554, 201 S.W.2d 723, 724, 725; Commonwealth v. Coleman, 252 Mass. 241, 243, 147 N.E. 552, 553, where under a statute similar to ours the Massachusetts Supreme Court said: “Whoever uses a motor vehicle must actually be authorized to do so if he is to stand guiltless under this statute. Mere belief, however honest, in the authority of the person in control, is not enough.”
I would affirm.