Albrecht v. Safeway Stores, Inc.

80 P.2d 62, 159 Or. 331, 1938 Ore. LEXIS 75
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedMay 4, 1938
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 80 P.2d 62 (Albrecht v. Safeway Stores, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Albrecht v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 80 P.2d 62, 159 Or. 331, 1938 Ore. LEXIS 75 (Or. 1938).

Opinion

BELT, J.

This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident *334 which occurred on the John Day highway about 17 miles north of the city of Burns in Harney county, Oregon. Verdict and judgment were had in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants H. M. Howard and the Safeway Stores, Incorporated, in the sum of $29,000. No damages were found against the defendants George Velvin and Thomas Velvin.

H. M. Howard is the district manager of the Safeway Stores and has general supervision of stores owned and operated by his employer in five counties in eastern Oregon, including Harney county. Among other things it is his duty, as district manager, to inspect these various stores and to haul merchandise from one store to another. Howard used his own automobile in making these trips of inspection and was paid by his employer four cents a mile to cover traveling expenses. While returning from Burns to Baker on one of these monthly inspection trips, a head-on collision occurred between the Oldsmobile driven by Howard and a Ford owned by defendant George Velvin and operated by his son, Thomas Velvin, who was transporting some high school boys to Burns to play football. The plaintiff, who was riding with Howard, was seriously and permanently injured as a result of the accident.

One of the principal contentions of appellants is that the. trial court should have declared as a matter of law that the plaintiff, while being so transported, was a guest and that it was error to submit to the jury the question of the status of the plaintiff. Such assignment of error-requires a more detailed statement of the facts.

Plaintiff testified that on the morning of November 15, 1935, his brother-in-law, Howard, telephoned “and wanted me to go over to Burns with him” in his auto: *335 mobile to inspect the store at that place, bnt “I told him I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t go.” Howard, however, came down to the plaintiff’s home and insisted upon his going. While there, Howard said that “he wanted me to go along — he might need some help, and that his wife didn’t want him to make it alone, and he wanted me to go along and help drive. ’ ’

This standard, oiled macadamized highway traverses a mountainous section of the state, with- many blind hairpin curves. At the time in question the road was extremely slippery as it was covered with a thin coating of ice and snow. The distance from Baker to Burns is 167 miles. Plaintiff received no compensation for making the trip and the expenses thereof, including hotel room and meals, were paid by Howard. Plaintiff was not an employee of the Safeway Stores but was a railway mail clerk and, under the rules of the government department, was prohibited from engaging in other employment. He was enabled to go with Howard by reason of a “five-day layoff”. While Howard slept, he drove about 40 miles of the distance en route to Burns. Before returning from Burns to Baker, plaintiff assisted in loading several ten-pound sacks of salt in Howard’s automobile to be transported to the store at Baker.

In the light of the above facts can it be said, as a matter of law, that plaintiff was merely a guest? What was the motivating influence in his going? Did he go for his own social pleasure or business, or was it to confer some substantial benefit upon Howard in the furtherance of the Safeway Stores’ business? If different reasonable inferences can be drawn from the evidence concerning the status of the plaintiff, the question was one for the jury. If the only reasonable deduction *336 is that plaintiff was merely a guest, the court should have so decided as a matter of law.

Eelative to this phase of the case the court instructed the jury that if it found plaintiff was a guest there could be no recovery against the Safeway Stores. The court also instructed that whether the plaintiff was a guest or a passenger at the time of this accident depended .upon whether “he went merely for pleasure or for company for Howard or whether he went for the purpose of assisting Howard in the performance of some service.”

The guest statute of this state (§ 55-1209, Oregon Code 1930) provides:

“No person transported by the owner or operator of a motor vehicle as his guest without payment for such transportation shall have a cause of action for damages against such owner or operator for injury, death or loss, in case of accident, unless such accident shall have been intentional on the part of said owner or operator or caused by his gross negligence or intoxication or his reckless disregard of the rights of others.”

In construing the above statute it is well to have -in mind the evils which brought about its enactment. The legislature undoubtedly appreciated the apparent injustice of holding an owner or operator of an automobile liable in damages for failure to exercise ordinary care to one riding merely as a guest. It was not considered just that one who accepts the kindness or hospitality of an automobile owner or operator, in extending an invitation to ride, should recover damages for personal injuries unless the same resulted from gross negligence, intoxication, or an intentional wrong. The statute was designed to relieve the harshness of the common law rule which required the exercise of ordinary care even to a recipient of the driver’s kindness and hospitality.

*337 In the ordinary acceptation, of the term, a “guest”, according to Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d Ed.), is “a person entertained in one’s house or at one’s table; a visitor entertained without pay; hence, a person to whom the hospitality of a home, club, etc. is extended.” As used in the statute, a “guest” is one who accepts a ride in any motor vehicle without payment therefor, and for his own pleasure or business. He is the recipient of the hospitality of the owner or driver: Gledhill v. Connecticut Co., 121 Conn. 102 (183 Atl. 379). “Payment” as used in the statute does not necessarily mean a money compensation. “Payment” is not to be considered in its restricted legal sense as the discharge in money of a sum due or the performance of a pecuniary obligation: Haney v. Takakura, 2 Cal. App. (2d) 1 (37 P. (2d) 170); Cardinal v. Reinecke, 280 Mich. 15 (273 N. W. 330, 274 N. W. 379). If the person accepting the ride does so for the purpose of conferring some substantial benefit upon the owner or operator of the motor vehicle there is “payment” within the meaning of the statute and such person is not a mere guest: McCann v. Hoffman, 9 Cal. (2d) 279 (70 P. (2d) 909); Elliott v. Behner, 146 Kan. 827 (73 P. (2d) 1116); Elliott v. Camper, (Del.), 194 Atl. 130; Lyttle v. Monto, 248 Mass. 340 (142 N. E. 795).

In Thomas v. Currier Lumber Co., 283 Mich. 134 (277 N. W. 857), the principal question was whether the plaintiff while riding in the motor vehicle at the time he sustained his injuries was “a guest without payment” within the meaning of the Michigan statute— which is substantially the same as that of this state. The court, in construing the statute, said:

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Bluebook (online)
80 P.2d 62, 159 Or. 331, 1938 Ore. LEXIS 75, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/albrecht-v-safeway-stores-inc-or-1938.