Court Opinion

ID: 9747513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:18:56.405288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:24.237922
License: Public Domain

*420Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I am pleased that the Court today partially repudiates the imputed contributory negligence doctrine. I am unable to join the majority’s opinion, however, because I believe that in adopting a limited “both ways” test, it falls short of accomplishing the degree of reform necessary in this area. I am particularly disturbed that the majority, in continuing to apply the doctrine to the master-servant relationship, places so much weight on the physical control a master has over a servant. I therefore can only concur in the result.
The imputed contributory negligence doctrine has been criticized on two grounds. For one, it is quite obvious that the doctrine is based on the absurd fiction that the owner-passenger has the “right” to control the vehicle.1 In the real world, however, a passenger can in no safe way exercise operational control over the vehicle in which he rides, even if he is the owner.2 But the imputed contributory negligence doctrine requires the owner-passenger not only to constantly advise the driver, but also to seize the wheel if need be. For if *421he does not actively seek to pull Ms negligent driver out of trouble, he will have to shoulder any losses he may suffer in an accident. Of course if he does interfere, he is likely to be found actively negligent.3 One wonders what the owner should do if he is riding in the back seat;4 perhaps he should just go to sleep.5
A second weakness in the doctrine of imputed contributory negligence arises from the fact that courts have often failed to discern the difference between using the fiction of control to impute negligence when the owner-passenger is the defendant, and using it to impute contributory negligence when the owner-passenger is the plaintiff. The assumption has been that if the driver’s negligence is imputed, it is only logical to likewise impute his contributory negligence. But there is no justification for imputing contributory negligence, other than “the strong psychological appeal of all rules cast in the form of balanced and logical symmetry.”6 Unfortunately, the empty formalism of this approach, an example of what Harper and James have termed the “both-ways test,”7 even became imbedded in the first *422Restatement of Torts §485: “[A] plaintiff is barred from recovery by the negligent act or omission of a third person if, but only if, the relation between them is such that the plaintiff would be liable as a defendant for harm caused to others by such negligent conduct of a third person.”
Courts and commentators have been quick to see these two errors in the doctrine. The fiction was criticized even when applied to a horse-drawn carriage, see Hoag v. New York C. & H. R.R. Co., 111 N.Y. 199, 203, 18 N.E. 648, 649 (1888), and the criticism mounted when the fiction was applied to automobiles: “Any attempted exercise of the right of control by wresting the wheel from the driver would be foolhardy. Equally menacing to the driver’s efficient operation of the machine are raucous reproaches, strident denunciations, or even persistent unctuous admonitions from the back seat.” Sherman v. Korff, 353 Mich. 387, 395, 91 N.W. 2d 485, 487 (1958). For similar statements, see, e.g., Painter v. Lingon, 193 Va. 840, 848, 71 S.E. 2d 355, 360 (1952); Jenks v. Veeder Contracting Co., 177 Misc. 240, 243, 30 N.Y.S. 2d 278, 281 (1941), aff’d, 264 App. Div. 979, 37 N.Y.S. 2d 230 (1942), appeal dismissed, 289 N.Y. 787, 46 N.E. 2d 848 (1943); cf. Southern Pacific Co. v. Wright, 248 F. 261, 264 (9th Cir. 1918).
Similarly, the “both-ways test” has been strongly criticized. In 1932 it was written that “[c]ourts seem unaware that the policies involved in granting or denying the defensive plea may be different from those controlling the responsibility in damages of a master for the conduct of his servant, and that the latter are probably concerned simply with providing a financially responsible defendant.” Gregory, Yicarious Responsibility and Contributory Negligence, 41 Yale L.J. 831, 833 (1932). In Johnson v. Los Angeles-Seattle Motor Eso*423press, Inc., 222 Ore. 377, 387, 352 P. 2d 1091, 1095 (1960), the Supreme Court of Oregon rejected the doctrine stating: “The practical necessity for imposing liability on an owner in the cases which do justify the doctrine of imputed liability is not present in the situation where the owner is an injured passenger in his own car. The two-way test of the Restatement does not commend itself as either useful or necessary. Its only virtue, as pointed out in Harper and James, supra, is that it is logical and symmetrical. Important legal rights ought to have better footing than mere architectural symmetry.”
It should be noted that the majority does not adopt the old “both ways” test but rather the view of the revised Restatement of Torts, for while §485 partially abolishes the imputed negligence doctrine, that doctrine is retained in the areas of master-servant relations and joint enterprise. See §§486, 491 Restatement of Torts (Second). However, I submit that the criticisms I have noted above concerning the imputed contributory negligence doctrine apply with equal force to the two exceptions carved out by the second Restatement.
In these days of congested travel on high speed highways, the dangers of requiring that someone wrest control of a vehicle from the driver if the latter is negligent certainly are present whether the driver is the bailee, agent or servant of the passenger. The Supreme Court of Minnesota re-examined the whole problem of imputed contributory negligence recently in a well-reasoned opinion that deserves close study. See Weber v. Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., 274 Minn. 482, 144 N. W. 2d 540 (1966). There the court repudiated the application of the doctrine to the master-servant relation in automobile negligence cases, stressing the absurdity of the control argument, and the absence of need for a *424solvent defendant, unlike vicarious liability cases where the master properly is held accountable for the negligence of his servant.
I look forward to the day when this Court completes its reform in this area.

 The doctrine of imputed contributory negligence, in the setting involved in this case, has its roots in the 1849 English case of Thorogood v. Bryan, 8 C.B. 115, 137 Eng. Rep. 452. Thorogood was a suit by a passenger of a public omnibus against the owner of another omnibus. The passenger was denied recovery because the driver of her omnibus, as well as the other driver, was negligent. The theory was that the passenger had a measure of control over the driver; he had “employed” the driver and “[i]f he is dissatisfied with the mode of conveyance, he is not obliged to avail himself of it.” Id. at 132. As Dean Prosser has written, this was a “nonsensical fiction,” which was later abandoned in England and by those states which had followed it in America. See Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts 502 (3d ed. 1964) (citing cases).

 The owner can, of course, exercise some degree of control when he selects a driver; or, at times, he may be required to give some kind of directional advice, like “slow down.” Improper performance of these duties may be active negligence, but that is not involved in this case.

 “In the usual case the passenger has no physical ability to control the operation of the car, and no opportunity to interfere with it; and any attempt on his part to do so in fact would be a dangerously distracting piece of back-seat driving which might very well amount to negligence in itself.” Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts 494 (3d ed. 1964).

 Cf. Nutt v. Pennsylvania R.R., 281 Pa. 372, 377, 126 Atl. 803, 805 (1924) (“But an invited guest, and especially one who occupies a rear seat in the car where no opportunity of control exists ... is not concerned with the operating of the car and cannot be viewed as joining with the driver in its operation

 Indeed, it has often been held that a driver’s contributory negligence cannot be imputed to an owner-passenger who is asleep when the accident occurs. See, e.g., Stafford v. Roadway Transit Co., 165 F. 2d 920 (3d Cir. 1948) (applying Pennsylvania law) ; Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Caster, 216 A. 2d 689 (Del. S. Ct. 1966).

 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts 1273 (3956).

 See id. at 1273-77.