179 A. 75 | Pa. | 1935
Lead Opinion
Plaintiff, Marion Spencer, by her next friend, brings this action to recover damages for the death of her husband, who was killed while riding in the automobile belonging to and driven by defendant. From the recovery by plaintiff in the court below defendant prosecutes this appeal.
When deceased was going to work in his own automobile on the night of the accident, his car broke down. From the roadside, along which he was walking, he signalled to defendant, who overtook him, the desire to be taken into his automobile. Defendant stopped, and deceased entered the car, which proceeded for a distance of about two miles, when it collided with a truck coming in the opposite direction, and plaintiff's decedent was killed. The collision was caused by defendant's driving on the wrong side of the road on a curve and beyond the center line of the highway, in violation of the provisions of the Vehicle Code of May 1, 1929, P. L. 905, at page 977, 75 P. S., section 541, which directs that, "Drivers of vehicles proceeding in opposite directions shall pass the other to the right, each giving the other at least one-half (1/2) of the main traveled portion of the highway."
Under the presentation of the case, made by appellant's able attorney who argued it before us, we have but one question to meet: What was the degree of care which defendant owed to the deceased? The argument is that it was not ordinary care, but that to a self-invited passenger, as deceased was, the defendant is liable only if he *233
wantonly or willfully injured him, and that in this class of cases we should adopt the Massachusetts Rule enunciated in Massaletti v. Fitzroy,
We think it unnecessary to broaden beyond our own borders the review of authorities on the question. How some of the other states may have determined, with us the rule of ordinary care in such cases is fixed and not to be departed from, since we regard the principle we have established as being the just one. It is difficult to see why a person who becomes a self-invited guest in an automobile, under circumstances such as those before us, should be covered by a different rule of law as to the vehicle's operation from that which applies to one who enters such a conveyance on the invitation of the owner. In each instance, the operator of the car has the safety of another human being in his keeping. It would seem that he should exercise ordinary care for both classes of guests, and it sounds somewhat strange to say, as to one of them, that he need not be ordinarily careful in operating his car. Whether self-invited or owner-invited, the guest enters the car with the assent of the owner.
In the very recent case of Richards v. Warner Co.,
The court below was correct in its ruling that the defendant was liable if he did not operate his car with ordinary care.
The judgment is affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
The majority opinion confines its conclusion to the facts of this particular case, but as it is a self-invited guest case I cannot agree with their conclusion. Here a "hitch hiker," who asked for a ride, was killed. Suit was instituted against the owner who gave him a ride; by a jury's verdict the wife will receive $11,398 from the person who gave her husband a ride in his car. Whether the finding of the jury that the owner was negligent in driving partly on the wrong side of a curve was correct, it is a safe conclusion that juries will generally so find when such questions are submitted to them.
I would lay down a rule that prevents such questions being submitted — a rule that an owner or driver of a vehicle is liable only for gross negligence or for wanton or wilful injury to self-invited guests, following Massaletti v. Fitzroy,