Davis v. Shaw

142 So. 301
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 11, 1932
DocketNo. 4326.
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 142 So. 301 (Davis v. Shaw) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Shaw, 142 So. 301 (La. Ct. App. 1932).

Opinion

CULPEPPER, J.

Plaintiff’s suit was dismissed by the lower court upon an exception of no cause of action., and he has appealed.

The petition sets forth substantially the following:

Plaintiff, while driving his Ford ear in a lawful manner along the Shreveport-Minden public highway at a point within the corporate limits of the city of Minden, in the parish of Webster, on the afternoon of September 18,1931, was run into by a Studebaker coupg belonging to defendant, and which was being driven at the time by defendant’s sixteen year old nephew, Oscar L. McLain. Defendant was not in said coupg at the time; its only occupants being McLain and two. *303 other young men, who were out pleasure riding.

McLain’s father and mother died when he was four or five years of age, since which time he had been living in the home of defendant, being cared for, educated, and controlled and supervised by her, as one of her family, “living under the same roof with defendant,” although defendant had never qualified as his tutrix. It is alleged that “defendant was and is the minor’s guardian,” but plaintiffs counsel states in -brief filed that the allusion in the petition to guardianship was not meant to convey the meaning that defendant was the legally qualified guardian, as such was not her status toward the minor. We shall therefore not consider defendant’s relationship toward the minor as that of legal tutrix. The term “guardian” is unknown to the laws of this state. •

It is alleged that defendant is the head of her family of which said minor was and is a member, although it is not alleged that she is a widow or that her husband does not reside with her. It is alleged that defendant is the owner of the Studebaker coupé, and that she purchased it for the pleasure, enjoyment, and use of the members of her family, and that it was being so used by her said minor nephew at the time of the collision. It is alleged that, as a result of the collision, four of plaintiff’s children in his Ford car with,him at the time were badly injured, and his car also damaged, for which an aggregate sum of $1,494 is sought to be recovered from defendant.

It is alleged that said Oscar L. McLain was driving defendant’s car at a reckless and dangerous speed of approximately sixty miles per hour at the time of the collision; that he was operating and using said car “with the permission, express and implied, of defendant, and with her knowledge, approval and consent” ; that he “was and is a careless, reckless and incompetent driver of an automobile, all of which defendant had knowledge and well knew; that, notwithstanding such knowledge, defendant continued to permit her minor nephew to use the ear at will, and whenever he desired to do so, all of which constituted gross negligence on the part of defendant, which gross negligence was the proximate cause of the injuries complained of in this suit.”

It is further alleged that'the speed limit in the city of Minden ⅛ twenty-two miles per hour, and that it is unlawful for a person under seventeen years of age to drive a ear within the city’s limits, under special ordinances of said city; that under these circumstances it was also gross negligence on the part of-defendant to' permit her nephew to drive her automobile in the manner he did within said city limits.

The petition sets forth that defendant resides in Cotton Valley, which is some distance from Minden.

It is not alleged that defendant was present with her nephew in her car at the time or that she had requested or ordered him to go from her home in Cotton Valley to Min-den, or go elsewhere, upon any business or errand for her, or that she knew he was going to drive to Minden, but that she merely had permitted him to use her car in which to go out riding with his friends, not members of her family.

Counsel for plaintiff in brief filed relies upon the following articles of the Civil Code:

2315: “Every act whatever of man that causes damage to another, obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it.”
2316: “Every person is responsible for the damages he occasions not merely by his act, but by his negligence, his imprudence, or his want of skill.”
2317: “We are responsible, not only for the damage occasioned by our own act, but for that which is caused by the act of persons for whom we are answerable, or of the things which we have in our custody. This, however, is to be understood with the following modifications.”

The modifications or restrictions referred to in the last named article are given in articles 2318 to 2322, inclusive. They specifically provide that parents are responsible for the damages occasioned by their minor children, tutors for that of their wards, curators for insane persons, masters for their servants and employees, teachers for their scholars, artisans for their apprentices, and owners for their animals and their buildings.

We find innumerable cases cited under the various codal articles recognizing liability, but in every case the provision of the article under which each case is cited is found to apply. From this it would seem that liability cannot be recognized, unless specially provided for under some one of the codal provisions.

Under article 2320, dealing with masters, teachers, and artisans, is cited the ease of Marionneaux v. Brugier, 1 McGloin, 257, the syllabus of which reads: “Restriction” of this article, “limiting liability for damages occasioned by the acts of minors to cases where the person to be charged ‘might have prevented the act which caused the damage and have not done it,’ applies only to masters or employers, teachers or artisans.” Dart’s 1932 Annotated Code.

In Moulin v. Monteleone, 165 La. 178, 115 So. 447, 451, the Supreme Court of this state, in construing article 2315 of the Code, said: “It is well settled, however, that that broad language, which first appeared as article 16 of title 4, Book 3, of the Act of March 31, 1808, called the ‘Digest of the Civil Laws in *304 Force in tile Territory,’ and sometimes called tlie Civil Code of 1S08, was only declaratory of a very general and fundamental principle of justice, and was not intended to give a cause or riglit of action for every grievance, or where none was allowed otherwise under the laws in force in the territory.”

The court in that case, further discussing the article 2315, cited the case of Hubgh v. New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad Co., 6 La. Ann. 495, wherein the court held that plaintiff had no right or cause of action because, although the case was within the very letter of the law, it was not within its meaning or its spirit.

In the Hubgh Case, Chief Justice Eustis, as the organ of the court, in sustaining a.n exception of no cause or right of action in the case, said: ‘‘The obligation resulting from a tort can only be the ground of an action, when the obligation is recognized and ratified by the law: for by far the greater portion of the wrongs to which we are exposed in our artificial condition of society the law does not afford any redress. The redress is of necessity confined to legal rights, for which the law has provided an action or inflicts a punishment. 3 Black. Com. 23, 117. Pothier on Obligations, No. 1 and 197.”

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Bluebook (online)
142 So. 301, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-shaw-lactapp-1932.