Myers v. GaitherMyers v. Gaither
Lead Opinion
While appellant
On essentially these facts, at the closе of all the testimony, the trial judge directed a verdict in favor of appellee on the ground that “the jury would be left entirely to conjecture and speculation as to who was operating [the] vehicle” at the time of the accident. This appeal ensued.
Appellant advances two alternative theories to establish appellee’s liability: first, either that appellee was in fact driving his automobile at the time of the accident or it was being driven by some other person with his knowledgе and consent; or, second, that appellee, in violation of the traffic regulations, had left his car keys in the vehicle — that this violation was negligence, which permitted someone to steal the car, and that appellee is therefore liable for the consequences of his omission of care.
I
The first theory predicates liability upon a presumption that the operator of a motor vehicle was driving it with the owner’s consent and is therefore deemed to be the agent of the owner. The presumption has been imposed by case law in Maryland. In Wagner v. Page,
Whenever any motor vehicle * * * shall be operated upon the public highways of the District of Columbia by any person other than the owner, with the consent of the owner, express or imрlied, the operator thereof shall in case of accident, be deemed to be the agent of the owner of such motor vehicle and the proof of the ownership of said motor vehicle shall be prima facie evidence that such person operated said motor vehicle with the consent of the owner.
As a rule of evidence pertaining to the remedy, we apply the presumption as stated in § 40-424 and construed in the cases interpreting that section.
Appellant asserts there were inconsistencies and contradictions in appellee’s own evidence which entitled him to have his case submitted to the jury. He points out, for example, that although appellee testified he had been home all evening, had retired shortly before midnight, and normally had no difficulty hearing the ring of the telephone, numerous phone calls to his residence over a three-hour period immediately after the accident were not answered. The jury, appellant contends, may well have concluded that appellee was not at home until nearly 3:30 a. m. —that he was therefore either driving his automobile at the time of the accident, or at least was untruthful in his account of his whereabouts. Appellant also asks us to note that in a deposition taken more than four years after the accident appellee could not recall his activities on the night of the accident. However, at trial appellee was precise in his recollection that he had been visited about 10 p. m. by a Mr. Hendricks,.
Appellee counters appellant’s argument by maintaining that his evidence was not inherently improbable or impeached and should therefore control. Stone v. Stone,
The factual possibilities reasonably inferred from appellant’s evidence, combined with minor contradictions and possible impeachment of appellee’s testimony, bring this case within Farrall v. Ellis, D.C.Mun.App.,
II
At trial a Maryland police officer testified that appellee, when he reclaimed his car, stated he had locked the ignition and the doors to his station wagon but must have left the keys in the tailgate, which enabled some unauthorized person to take the car. Appellee denied any recollection of having made this statement.
On the basis of the admission attributed to appеllee, that he must have left the keys in the tailgate, appellant predicates his second theory of appellee’s liability — his violation of Art. XIV, § 98, of the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Regulations of the District of Columbia which provides:
No person driving, or in charge of a motor vehicle shall permit it to stand unattended without first stopping the engine, locking the ignition, removing the key, and .effectively setting the brake thereon and, when standing upon any grade, turning the front wheels to the curb or side of the highway.
The trial judge refusеd to admit the regulation on the ground that it was not supported by the evidence and that any conclusion reached as a result of considering the facts in the light of this regulation would be speculative. On the contrary, given the presence of the key in the car,
The trial judge also ruled that § 98 would be inapplicable as the regulation demands, only the removal of the key from the ignition. The plain language of the regulation lists a number of operations to be performed when leaving the car unattended: stopping the engine, locking the ignition, setting the brake. “Removing the key” logically means to remove the key completely from the car
Ill
Although both Maryland and the District of Columbia hold that violation of a safety regulation presents a prima facie case of negligence,
An opposite view is followed in this jurisdiction. Ross v. Hartman, 78 U.S.App. D.C. 217,
Violation of an ordinance intended to promote safety is negligence. If by creating the hazard which the ordinance was intended to avoid it brings about the harm which the ordinance was intended to prevent, it is a legal cause of the harm. This comes only to saying that in such circumstances the law has no reason to ignore and does not ignore the causal relation which obviously exists in fact. * * *
*583 This negligence created the hazard and thereby brought about the harm which the ordinance was intended to prevent.'6
Only in special or peculiаr circumstances would such negligence not be a proximate cause of the injury as a matter of law. If the District of Columbia law is applicable in the present case, the trial judge clearly erred in refusing to permit the jury to consider this theory of liability.
IV
The critical question then becomes: Does the law of Maryland or that of the District of Columbia apply to this case ?
Appellee urges the traditional application of lex loci delictus, the law of Maryland where the injury occurred. We have previously acquiesced in this application. Miller & Long Co. v. Shaw, D.C.App.,
In recent years various jurisdictions have applied a “contact” or “grouping of contacts” theory when faced with a conflict between the law of the forum and the law of the place of injury. See, e.g., Babcock v. Jackson,
The general conflict-of-laws rule, fоllowed by a vast majority of the States, is to apply the law of the place of injury to the substantive rights of the parties. * * * Recently there has been a tendency on the part of some States to depart from the general conflicts rule in order to take into account the interests of the State having significant contact with the parties to the litigation. We can see no compelling reason to saddle the Act with an interpretation that would prevent the federal courts from implementing this рolicy in choice-of-law rules where the State in which the negligence occurred has adopted it. Should the States continue this rejection of the older rule in those situations where its application might appear inappropriate or inequitable, the flexibility inherent in our interpretation will also be more in step with that judicial approach * * *. [Citations omitted.]
The Restatement (Second), Conflict of Laws § 379 (Tent. Draft No. 9, 1964) considers as important contacts, inter alia, the place of the injury, the place where the conduct occurred, the domicile of the parties, the place where the relationship between the parties is centered. In determining relative importance of the contacts, the forum will consider the issues, the character of the tort, and the relevant purposes of the tort rules of the interested states. See also Vanston Bondholders Protective Comm. v. Green,
Determination requires the exercise of an informed judgment in the balancing of all the interеsts of the states with the most significant contacts in order best*584 to accommodate the equities among the parties to the policies of those states.
There has been some recent case treatment of the contacts theory in this jurisdiction. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Tramontana v. S. A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense,
The high incidence of auto thefts in the District of Columbia,
Reversed with directions to grant a new trial consistent with this opinion.
Notes
. Since appellant American Motorist Insurance Company is here involved only through its right of subrogation, “appellant” will be used in the singular and will refer only to appellant Myеrs.
. The dissent states that we err in considering § 40-424 in our disposition of this case — that this constitutes an extraterritorial application of the section in contravention of obiter dicta contained
The evidentiary clause of § 40-424 (and the clause not discussed in Knight) provides that “the proof of ownership of said motor vehicle shall be prima facie evidence that such person operated said motor vehicle with the consent of the owner.” This clause is a rule of evidence created by statute. The application of such a rule “to the trial of a cause of action arising in another state * * * does not operate to give the statute an extraterritorial effect.” 15A C.J.S. Conflict of Laws § 22(9). In Pennsylvania Co. v. McCann,
No extraterritorial effect is given to a statute creating a rule of evidence by the fact that the rule is applied to the trial of a cause of action arising in another state. * * * If the tribunal of a state obtains jurisdiction of the parties and the cause, it will conduct the investigation of the facts in controversy between them according to its own rules of evidence, which is, simply, to follow its own laws within its borders.42 N.E. at 769 . See also Menard v. Goltra,328 Mo. 368 ,40 S.W.2d 1053 (1931).
Federal courts have also followed this rule when asked to apply a state evi-dentiary presumption, United Airlines, Inc. v. Wiener,
.In discussing a Maryland regulation, virtually identicаl to § 98, the Maryland Court of Appeals in Hochschild, Kohn & Co. v. Canoles,
was to be accomplished not only by turning off the motor and locking the ignition and taking the keg away, which would make it difficult for anyone except a mechanic to start the car * * *, [Emphasis added.]
. Ross v. Hartman,
. Kelley v. Huber Baking Co.,
.
. Cf. Armiger v. Real Transportes Aereos, D.C.Cir.,
. Report of the President’s Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia 97-103 (1966) states that over 5,000 automobiles are stolen every year in this jurisdiction; in almost 20 per cent of the thefts, car keys had been left in the autos stolen.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting):
I cannot agree that Section 4CM-24 of the District of Columbia Code has any application to this case which concerns an automobile collision that occurred in Maryland. Section 4CU424, a part of the Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act of the District of Columbia, by its exрress terms applies only to situations where a motor vehicle is “operated upon the public highways of the Dis
Thе majority opinion says it is applying only the evidentiary clause of Section 40-424. I think it misconstrues the purpose of the section. Its purpose was to create a new liability by making the owner of a motor vehicle responsible for its operation whenever operated with the consent of the owner. This was a change of substantive law. There has been no such change in Maryland where the law still is that the “mere fact that the owner has given permission to the driver to use his car is not enough to make him liable.” State, Use of Shipley v. Walker,
I agree that in a trial in this jurisdiction our rules of evidence apply even though the accident occurred beyond this jurisdiction, but the controlling substantive law is that of the place where the accident occurred. See Molinaro v. Scott Brothers, Inc.,
It has come to be the general rule that, in an action for injuries resulting from being struck by an automobile, proof that the automobile was owned by the defendant at the time of the accident establishes a prima facie case for the plaintiff. In other words, proof of defendant’s ownership of an automobile that has been driven on the public highway warrants the inference that it was in his possession, either personally or through his servant, the driver, and that the driver was acting within the scope of his employment.
The same general rule applies in Maryland. See Hoerr v. Hamline,
With respect to the second theory of liability, the majority opinion concedes that even if appellee were negligent in not removing the car keys, there could be no recovery under Maryland law. It seeks to apply District of Columbia law because, it says, the case has more important contacts with the District. The accident occurred in Maryland and a resident of Maryland was the injured party. I know of no more important contacts. This is no case for “choice of law.” We should follow our previous decisions and apply Maryland law. If the majority opinion stands, the trial court hereafter in every case claiming negligence in another jurisdiction will be faced with the question of what law is applicable, and will have no definite guidelines to an
. Even if Section 40 — 124 had any application here, it could not come into play until there had been a determination that appellee was not the driver of his automobile, because this section applies only when the motor vehicle is operated “by any person other than the owner.” See Judge Myers’ dissent in Joyner v. Holland, D.C.App.,