Court Opinion

ID: 9595470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:40:48.559461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:27.972513
License: Public Domain

*624CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring, with comment).
Any change in the guest statute which has been our law .since 1935, should be a legislative matter.1 There is a basis in reason for treating social guests, as a class, different from paying passengers. There are numerous areas in the law where the duty one person owes another depends upon the status between them. This ranges from family relationships, through strangers and outright enemies. One of the obvious examples is the differing degrees of duty owed to a trespasser, a licensee, a social guest, and a business invitee on one’s property.2 There is no unjust discrimination in a statute which makes classifications for a legitimate purpose and all people in the same class are treated equally.3 This statute represents the judgment of our legislature that it serves a useful purpose in providing for the welfare and preserving the peace and good order of society. I see nothing therein which contravenes any constitutional provision or which exceeds the power of the legislature to enact laws to further that objective.
To be considered in correlation with the above is the universally recognized principle that the judiciary should not reach into the legislative prerogative and strike down a statute if the case can be decided on other grounds.4 This emanates from the realization that one of the best and most important aspects of our system of government, and which tends to preserve its strength and continuity, is the mutual restraint and respect its three branches: the executive, the legislative and judicial, each has for the prerogatives and integrity of the other.5
In the case of Ashwander v. T. V. A.6 in his concurring opinion, Justice Brandéis makes a very good exposition of this doctrine. He points out the reasons for, and a number of means employed by the courts, in support of their reluctance to intrude into the legislative field. In doing so he quoted the eminent authority Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th Ed.), p. 332:
It must be evident to anyone that the power to declare a legislative enactment void is one which the judge, conscious of the fallibility of the human judgment, will shrink from exercising in any case where he can conscientiously and with due regard to duty and official oath decline the responsibility.
It is for the foregoing reasons that I concur with the main opinion on the ground stated; and that I register my disagreement with the appellant’s contention that the court should declare the guest statute unconstitutional.
ELLETT, J., concurs in the views expressed in the opinion of CROCKETT, J.

. That it should be left to the legislature to change the law see Davis v. Provo City, 1 Utah 2d 244, 265 P.2d 415.

. For treatment of such distinctions see Sections 333 to 341, Restatement of Torts 2d.

. State v. Mason, 94 Utah 501, 78 P.2d 920.

. For a plethora of authorities so stating see 16 Am.Jur.2d 301, 16 O.J.S. Constitutional Law p. 358.

. That the idea of judicial restraint is not new to this writer see comments in cases some years back, e. g., Stickle v. Union Pacific R. Co., 122 Utah 477, 251 P.2d 867; Cypert v. Washington County School District, 24 Utah 2d 419, 473 P.2d 887.

. 297 U.S. 288, at 345, 56 S.Ct. 466, at 481, 80 L.Ed. 688.