Court Opinion

ID: 9730607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:17:21.353362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:07.719816
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Associate Judge
(concurring) :
First, to be accurate, § 98, Art. XIV, of the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Regulations of the District of Columbia was not before the court in Ross v. Hartman, 78 U.S.App.D.C. 217, 139 F.2d 14 (1943), cert. denied, 321 U.S. 790, 64 S.Ct. 790, 88 L.Ed. 1080 (1944). The regulation then in effect specifically applied to vehicles which were allowed to stand or remain unattended “on any street or public place”, language which has been omitted from § 98. Second, I do not think it distorts or is clearly contrary to the meaning intended by the drafters of the present regulations to place upon a driver the burden of locking an unattended vehicle when left either upon public property, quasi or otherwise, or upon private property, whether the vehi-*636ele be carported, garaged, or left standing in the open. It also seems to me that, with or without a regulation, civil liability for damages can rest upon evidence that a thief trespassed upon private property and helped himelf to an unattended vehicle with the use of keys left in the ignition.1 I concur in this affirmance only because the trial judge found that the vehicle in question was not unattended within the meaning of the regulation.

. Cf. Schaff v. R. W. Claxton, Inc., 79 U.S. App.D.C. 207, 144 F.2d 532 (1944): R. W. Claxton, Inc. v. Scliaff, 83 U.S.App. D.C. 271, 169 F.2d 303, cert. denied, 335 U.S. 871, 69 S.Ct. 168, 93 L.Ed. 415 (1948).