Court Opinion

ID: 9564802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:07:39.056327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:40.828157
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Counsel for the movant earnestly contend that we have grounded our decision in this case on foreign authority and have ignored or misconstrued the controlling cases of Frankel v. Cone, 214 Ga. 733 (107 SE2d 819) and Redd v. Brisbon, 113 Ga. App. 23 (147 SE2d 15). Both these cases deal with bailment situations. In Frankel the holding was primarily that Code Ann. § 68-301 which attempted to place liability on the owner if the motor vehicle was used in his business or for his benefit was unconstitutional as assessing liability in cases where the owner did not know it was being so used, or even had prohibited the use. The further holding in Frankel was that where an owner turns an automobile over to a bailee parking lot company which latter, as a part of its business, provides employees to return the owner from the parking lot to his destination, the employee so acting is the servant of the company and not of the owner. Further the opinion expressly observes that no liability against the owner was urged on an agency theory. In Redd the garage *196where the owner left the automobile was also a bailee, but it did not provide the service mentioned in Frankel. A third-party customer having no relation to either the automobile owner or the garage committed himself to driving the owner to her destination and had a collision. In this case the bailee garage and not the owner was the defendant involved in the appeal, and it was contended that Brisbon, the third-party customer who was actually driving the car, was doing so as the servant of the bailee so as to render the bailee liable under respondeat superior. The court held (p. 25): “Conceding, as stated by the defendant Larry in his answers, that Brisbon accompanied him at the direction of Thomas for the purpose of returning the automobile to Thomas’ service station, he was, in doing so, nothing more than a mere volunteer.”
In the present case Walker Hall, president and sole owner of Walker Hall, Inc., to which the vehicle belonged, and the person with authority to say how it should be used or stored, requested a former employee to drive with him to the airport for the purpose of returning the car to the company parking lot. The case must be determined by the status of Jenkins, the driver. Was he a volunteer, a bailee, a servant or an agent? Not every person who accedes to another’s request to perform a service for him is a volunteer, and this is especially true where third parties are involved, for the “volunteer” defense is ordinarily used against one who has intermeddled in the affairs of others, has sustained injury thereby, and then attempts to hold such others responsible. See Manchester Mfg. Co. v. Polk, 115 Ga. 542 (3) (41 SE 1015); Lee v. Arlington Peanut Co., 176 Ga. 816 (1) (169 SE 1); Graham v. Walsh, 14 Ga. App. 287 (2) (80 SE 693). In tort actions it is usually considered as an extension of the assumption of risk doctrine.
As between agency and bailment the distinction is more tenuous. It is true that agency is usually applied to those acts requiring discretion, and the possession of personal property of another to be used for a specific purpose usually but not always constitutes a bailment. At least as to third parties the rule is that where A turns over his property to B for the specific purpose of having B perform some act which is within the business of A, and to which the possession is merely incidental, *197the transaction so far as third parties are concerned is to be considered an agency relation and not a bailment. “If the furnishing of an automobile ... is within what may be said to be a ‘business’ of the owner, one to whom the car is entrusted for such purpose is not a bailee, as in a case of lending, but is a servant or agent. If, on the other hand, the car is furnished by the owner merely as an accommodation to the other, with no interest or concern in the purpose for which the other will use it, then its use, whether for recreation or otherwise, is not within the business of the owner, and the transaction is a mere bailment. There is a vital distinction between the two cases here supposed, and the failure to recognize it has apparently been an important factor in leading some of the courts to conclusions which, it is respectfully submitted, are unsound.” Hubert v. Harpe, 181 Ga. 168, 173 (182 SE 167).
Hubert v. Harpe, supra, holds in essence (1) that the owner of an automobile may make it his “business” to maintain it for the use and convenience of his family, and (b) that an adult member of the family when using it in the “business” of the owner as above defined is the owner’s agent and the owner is liable for his negligence under the doctrine of respondeat superior. The second proposition is of course even more valid where the “business” of the corporate owner, as here, is one of financial gain and the automobile is being directly used in such business for the transportation of the president of the corporation who is himself engaged at the time in the business of. the corporation.

We adhere to the judgment of affirmance.