Borgstede v. Waldbauer

88 S.W.2d 373, 337 Mo. 1205, 1935 Mo. LEXIS 558
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 20, 1935
StatusPublished
Cited by100 cases

This text of 88 S.W.2d 373 (Borgstede v. Waldbauer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Borgstede v. Waldbauer, 88 S.W.2d 373, 337 Mo. 1205, 1935 Mo. LEXIS 558 (Mo. 1935).

Opinions

*1209 WESTHUES, C.

Respondent, as the widow of Louis Borgstede, obtained a judgment against appellants in the sum of $10,000 for the death of her husband caused by the alleged negligence of Waldbauer. From this judgment both defendants appealed.

The case was submitted to the jury under the humanitarian doctrine. Appellant, G. H. Wetterau & Sons Grocery Company, assigned as error the refusal of the trial court to give an instruction in the nature of a directed verdict. The reason assigned was that the evidence failed to show that appellant, Waldbauer, was, at the time of the accident, acting in the capacity of its servant. Waldbauer was employed by the grocery company as a salesman and collector of accounts. In making sales and collections he traveled in a Ford coupe. On August 14, 1930, he drove to the northern part of the city of St. Louis for the purpose of collecting an account. After making the call and at about eight o’clock p. m., he proceeded south on Grand Boulevard intending to go to his home on Leona Avenue in south St. Louis. As Waldbauer was driving into the intersection of Grand Boulevard and St. Louis Avenue the deceased, who, was walking across the street in a westerly direction, came in contact with Waldbauer’s car. Deceased died the following day as the result of the injuries received in the accident.

It is apparent from the facts enumerated, which were conceded at the trial, that Waldbauer was, at the time of the accident, acting *1210 within the scope of his employment. It was just as necessary for Waldbauer to return as it was for him to go to north St. Louis, as he had no business of his own there, but went in the interest of his employer. He was, therefore, about his master’s business. A salesman must of necessity travel from place to place to perform his duties. It was shown that the company knew Waldbauer was using a car in making sales and collections. In 42 Corpus Juris, page 1128, section 900, we read:

“Where, with the express or implied assent of the employer, an employee uses a vehicle which the employee owns in the discharge of his duties, the employer will be liable for an injury occasioned by its negligent operation by the employee while acting within the scope of his employment.” [See, also, Brauch v. Skinner Bros. Mfg. Co., 330 Mo. 760, 51 S. W. (2d) 27.] A salesman, returning home from a journey on behalf of his master is acting within the scope of his agency. [Teague v. Laclede-Christy, 331 Mo. 147, 52 S. W. (2d) 880; Newman v. Rice-Stix Dry Goods Co., 335 Mo. 572, 73 S. W. (2d) 264, l. c. 271 (13, 14).]

Respondent’s evidence supports a finding that deceased started to cross Grand Boulevard from east to west along the northerly boundary line of St. Louis Avenue at a time when the electric stop and go signs were in favor of east and west travel; that when he reached about the center of Grand Boulevard the lights changed so as to favor north and south travel. Waldbauer, driving south on Grand Boulevard, struck deceased when he was west of the southbound car tracks. It is respondent’s contention that the evidence justified the submission of the case under the humanitarian doctrine. This was not seriously disputed by appellant. It will, therefore, not be necessary .to go into detail as to how the accident happened. Appellants, however, contend that the trial court erred in giving respondent’s instructions Nos. 1 and 2. We will comment on Instruction No. 1 later in the opinion.

■ Instruction No. 2 defined the term “highest degree of care” as follows:

“By the use of the term ‘highest degree of care’ in these instructions, the court means such care, skill and foresight as a very competent and prudent person would use and exercise under like or similar circumstances. ’ ’

“Highest degree of care” means that degree of care and caution which a very careful and prudent person would use or exercise under similar circumstances. [Gude v. Weick Bros. Undertaking Co., 16 S. W. (2d) 59, 322 Mo. 778; Jackson v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 219 S. W. 655, l. c. 657, 281 Mo. 358.] Appellants -contend that the instruction above quoted not only required the highest degree of care to be exercised by Waldbauer, but in addition required the jury to find that he possessed such skill as is possessed by a very competent person. In this case meaning, such skill as would be possessed by a *1211 very competent driver of motor ears. We are of the opinion that appellants’ contention is correct. Respondent, however, argues that there is no degree of care higher than the highest and, therefore, the instruction did not east a greater burden of care upon Waldbauer than the law required. That there can be no degree of care higher than the highest will be conceded without argument. The instruction, however, goes further and requires such skill as would be possessed by a very competent person. Respondent has cited authorities which, when analyzed, condemn the instruction. First of all we must keep in mind that absent the provisions of Section 7775, Revised Statutes 1929 (Mo. Stat. Ann., p. 5197), a driver of a motor vehicle is only required to exercise that degree of care that an ordinarily prudent person would use under like or similar circumstances. [Garvey v. Ladd (Mo. App.), 266 S. W. 727, l. c. 731 (3); Welp v. Bogy, 8 S. W. (2d) 599, l. c. 600 (2-6), 320 Mo. 672; 1 Blashfield’s Cyclopedia of Automobile Law, p. 255, sec. 1, also p. 484, sec. 18.] Section 7775, supra, of our statutes is silent as to the skill required of operators of motor vehicles. We must, therefore, look to the common law. Respondent in his brief has quoted from Williams v. Hays, 143 N. Y. 442, l. c. 454, the following, which we think states the law:

“ ‘The standard man is no individual man, but an abstract or ideal man of ordinary mental and physical capacity and ordinary prudence. The particular man whose duty of care is to be measured does not furnish the standard. He may fall below it in capacity and prudence, yet the law takes no account of that, but requires ■ that he should come up to the standard and his duty be measured thereby.’ ”

The following from 39 Harvard Law Review, page 867, quoting from Holmes on The Common Law, was also found in respondent’s brief:

“ ‘When men live in society, a certain average of conduct, a sacrifice of individual peculiarities going beyond -a certain point is necessary to the general welfare. If, for instance, a man is born hasty and awkward, is always having accidents and hurting himself or his neighbors, no doubt his congenital defects will be allowed- for in the courts of Heaven, but his slips are no less troublesome to his neighbors than if they sprang from guilty neglect. His neighbors accordingly require him, at his proper peril, to come up to their standard, and the courts which they establish decline to take his personal equation into account.’ ”

If allowance be given in the courts of Heaven to a man for his. congenital defects which render him below the average man, then by the same rule of justice the ordinary man will not be held accountable on a par with an individual of natural extraordinary intelligence. Somewhere in the good book it is related that our Supreme Master gave to one person one hundred talents, to another fifty and *1212

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Bluebook (online)
88 S.W.2d 373, 337 Mo. 1205, 1935 Mo. LEXIS 558, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/borgstede-v-waldbauer-mo-1935.