This case fairly raises the question as to whether the negligence of the driver of a vehicle is to be imputed to a guest, riding with him gratuitously and personally in the exercise of all the care, which ordinary caution requires. The first case in our own court, which occasioned any discussion as to the identification of a passenger with a driver, was Allyn v. Boston & Albany Railroad,
The subject was next before the court in Randolph v. O’Riordon,
In Murray v. Boston Ice Co.
Yarnold v. Bowers,
In Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Railway,
Imputed negligence has been the cause of somewhat conflicting decisions at various times in different jurisdictions. The doctrine had its rise in Thorogood v. Bryan, 8 C. B. 115, which held that a passenger of one common carrier could not recover against a third person, whose negligence contributed to his- injury, in the
In Pennsylvania the rule of Thorogood v. Bryan was at first adopted. Lockhart v. Lichtenthaler, 46 Penn. St. 151. Philadelphia & Reading Railroad v. Boyer, 97 Penn. St. 91. But these earlier cases have been overruled recently in Dean v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 129 Penn. St. 514, 520; Bunting v. Hogsett, 139 Penn. St. 363, 375; Little v. Central District & Printing Telegraph Co. 213 Penn. St. 229. It has never been applied in that State to cases like the one at bar, where the plaintiff has always been permitted to go to the jury. Carlisle v. Brisbane, 113 Penn. St. 544. Carr v. Easton, 142 Penn. St. 139.
The unbroken line of authority in all the other States in the Union is opposed to this reasoning. With some modifications in its application to particular cases, the general rule is that where the injured person and the driver do not occupy the position of master and servant, passenger and carrier, parent and child, and where the plaintiff is himself in the exercise of due care, having no reason to suspect carelessness or incompetency on the part of the driver, and is injured by the concurring negligence of the driver of the vehicle and some third person, the guest is not precluded from recovery against the third person by reason of the negligence of the driver. In Elyton Land Co. v. Mingea,
A long series of decisions in Indiana supports the same view. It is forcibly expressed in Knightstown v. Musgrove,
The Supreme Court of Iowa follows the same rule, using the language at page 319 in Nesbit v. Garner,
The same general rule prevails in Missouri: Dickson v. Missouri Pacific Railway,
The question of imputed negligence was before the Supreme Court of the United States in Little v. Hackett,
Text-book writers generally have also expressed the same view. 7 Am. & Eng. Encyc. of Law, (2d ed.) 447. 1 Thompson, Negligence, § 502. 1 Shearman & Redfield, Negligence, § 66. Beach, Contributory Negligence, § 115.
If the subject is considered apart from decided cases and upon sound reason, the same conclusion is reached. There is no ab
The rule fairly deducible from our own cases, and supported by the great weight of authority by courts of other jurisdictions is that where an adult person, possessing all his faculties and personally in the exercise of that degree of care, which common prudence requires under all the attending circumstances, is injured through the negligence of some third person and the concurring negligence of one with whom the plaintiff is riding as guest or companion, between whom and the plaintiff the reía
Applying this statement of the law to the present case, the' result is that the plaintiff would not be entitled to recover if in the exercise of common prudence she ought to have given some warning to the driver of carelessness on his part, which she observed or might have observed in exercising due care for her own safety, nor if she negligently abandoned the exercise of her own faculties and trusted entirely to the vigilance and care of the driver. She cannot hide behind the fact that another is driving the vehicle in which she is riding, and thus relieve herself of her own negligence. What degree of care she should have exercised, in accepting the invitation to ride, or in observing and calling to the attention of the driver perils unnoticed by him, depends upon the circumstances at the time of the injury. On the other hand, she would be permitted to recover if, in entering and continuing in the conveyance, she acted with reasonable caution, and had no ground to suspect incompetency and no cause to anticipate negligence on the part of the driver, and if the impending danger, although in part produced by the driver, was so sudden or of such a character as not to permit or require her to do any act for her own protection.
In view of the facts of the case the requests for rulings presented by the plaintiff were not correct propositions of law and were properly refused, but the portion of the charge excepted to failed to express with accuracy and fulness the rights- of the plaintiff arid the liability of the defendant to her. The jury were instructed to treat the plaintiff as identified, with- the
Exceptions sustained.
