Court Opinion

ID: 9767433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:19:43.013197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:30.890987
License: Public Domain

George Eose Smith, J. (dissenting). I think the trial court made a mistake in telling the jury, in Instruction 4, that if Black & White sent a Checker cab in response to Love’s telephone call then as a matter of law Black & White would be liable for the cabdriver’s negligence. It seems to me that the trial judge really decided a question of fact that should have been left to the jury. No particular significance can be attached to the fact that Black & White and Checker employed a common dispatcher. A cab company must evidently have someone continuously on duty to answer telephone calls for cabs, but in a city the size of Little Eock the calls cannot be so numerous as to take up much of the dispatcher’s time. Hence it is sensible for two or more cab companies to reduce their overhead expense by using the same dispatcher, and this is true whether the companies are allied through stock ownership or are completely unrelated. A joint adventure is in the nature of a partnership; each of the parties must contribute property or services to the undertaking and have a right to share in the profits of the business. State ex rel. Atty. Gen. v. Gus Blass Co., 193 Ark. 1159, 105 S. W. 2d 853. We ought not to declare, as the majority opinion seems to do, that whenever two taxicab companies employ the same dispatcher they become joint adventurers as a matter of law and therefore assume liability for each other’s negligence. It may be that in the case at bar there was sufficient evidence to justify a finding that a joint adventure existed, even though there was no such allegation in the complaint, but if so the issue was nevertheless one of fact, upon which reasonable men might have differed. It should have been submitted to the jury. The majority’s alternative reason for upholding the instruction stands no better. As we observed in Bounds & Porter Lbr. Co. v. Burns, 216 Ark. 288, 225 S. W. 2d 1, it is only when the privilege of transacting business in corporate form has been illegally abused to the injury of a third person that the corporate entities should be disregarded. In the case at bar Black & White and Checker had the same officers and were owned by the same stockholders, but these facts alone do not destroy their separate identities. There is no. proof that, until this case arose, the existence of the two corporations had ever confused anyone. There is no proof that, until this case arose, the existence of the two corporations had ever worked to the injury of any third person. In fact, all that happened here was that Black & White concealed its position, by filing only a general denial, until after the statute of limitations had run against Checker. While there is evidence that would justify the jury in disregarding the corporate entities, the issue was one of fact that ought not to have been taken from the jury by the trial judge.