Court Opinion

ID: 9703309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:51:53.104237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:47.611768
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.
(concurring). The court’s opinion decides that the holding of Matits v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 33 N. J. 488 (1960), here dictates extension of the car owner’s insurance coverage to his nephew’s friend who was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident in New Jersey in the course of a week-end junket to New York with the nephew, when the uncle had given the nephew possession of the car so that the latter might do family errands in Baltimore for the former while he was confined to the hospital. This deviation was indeed a much more aggravated one than that in Matits and the views expressed in my dissenting opinion there, 33 N. J., at p. 498, seem even more pertinent. See also the comprehensive discussion of the field and its difficulties for the judiciary in Cohen and -Cohen, “Automobile Liability Insurance: Public Policy and the Omnibus Clause in New Jersey,” 15 Rutgers L. Rev. 155 (1961). But since the “initial permission” rule —more aptly described as the “hell or high water” doctrine— was settled as the law of this state by Matits, I am constrained to join the court’s opinion.
Hall, J., concurring in result.
*417For reversal —■ Chief Justice Weiííteatjb, and Justices Jacobs, Eeancis, Peootoe, Hall, Schettino and Bane-man — 7.
For affirmance — None.