Shultz v. Old Colony Street Railway Co.

79 N.E. 873, 193 Mass. 309, 1907 Mass. LEXIS 1172
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJanuary 1, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by100 cases

This text of 79 N.E. 873 (Shultz v. Old Colony Street Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shultz v. Old Colony Street Railway Co., 79 N.E. 873, 193 Mass. 309, 1907 Mass. LEXIS 1172 (Mass. 1907).

Opinion

Rugg, J.

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, 105 Mass. 77. The injuries out of which that action grew were received at a crossing at grade of a highway and steam railroad. The plaintiff personally failed to exercise any care for his own safety at a place so well recognized as one of danger, and sought to recover by screening himself behind the due care of the driver. The court says respecting this contention: “If the plaintiff failed to use the care which prudence required, relying upon the vigilance of his companion, he must prove that Haskell was in the exercise of due care, not only in the management of his horse, but in using the necessary precautions to guard against danger from passing trains.”

The subject was next before the court in Randolph v. O’Riordon, 155 Mass. 331. Here one of the plaintiffs hired a hack of one of the defendants’ for the purpose of attending a funeral, and exercised no control over the actions of the driver of the carriage other than the purpose of hiring indicated. The injury occurred by reason of the negligence of the driver of the hack, in which the plaintiffs were riding, and the concurring negligence of the driver of another carriage. After repudiating the doctrine of Thorogood v. Bryan, 8 C. B. 115, and referring with approval to Little v. Sackett, 116 U. S. 366, 375, and quoting from Allyn v. Boston & Albany Railroad the sentence above quoted, the court proceeds: “ This was very different from saying that Haskell’s negligence was to be imputed to the plaintiff, if he had been a passenger in a hack of which Haskell was the driver. It was merely saying that if, in a dangerous place, one person trusted another person to look out for him, he must show that such person used due care.”

In Murray v. Boston Ice Co. 180 Mass. 165, the lower court was asked to rule “ That if the accident was not due to the negligence of the defendant’s driver alone but was due partly also [313]*313to the negligence of the plaintiff’s driver, Marshallen, he could not recover.” This was refused, but it was ruled that if the plaintiff “ ‘ trusted to Marshallen the sole care and management of the team in which they were riding, and relied solely on the care and vigilance of Marshallen,’ then he must show due care on Marshallen’s part.” This instruction was held correct. And it was further said that the court did not mean to give the Allyn case “ any further sanction than it now has.”

Yarnold v. Bowers, 186 Mass. 396, was a case of collision at night upon a small lake between an unlighted rowboat not pursuing any regular course and a lighted steamer pursuing a regular course. It appeared that the plaintiff’s intestate was standing in the rowboat at the time of the accident, when the danger was impending, obviously a careless thing to do, and failed to make any outcry or display any light or do anything for his own protection, and, so far as the rowing was concerned, trusted the entire charge of the boat to one Thorn, who was negligent. The court held that the case fell within the rule of Allyn v. Boston & Albany Railroad.

In Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Railway, 185 Mass. 602, 606, in Tilton v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 169 Mass. 253, in Robbins v. Fitchburg Railroad, 161 Mass. 145, in Evensen v. Lexington & Boston Street Bailway, 187 Mass. 77, and on one branch of his claim in Halloran v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 192 Mass. 104, the plaintiff based his own case upon the due care of the driver of the vehicle in which he was riding, thereby adopting the driver’s acts as his own. In Creavin v. Newton Street Railway, 176 Mass. 529, and LeBlanc v. Lowell, Lawrence, & Haverhill Street Railway, 170 Mass. 564, the question of identification did not arise, as there was evidence in each case tending to show that the plaintiff actively exercised due care. The decision in Kane v. Boston Elevated Railway, 192 Mass. 386, was put upon the ground that the negligence of the defendant was not the cause of the accident to the plaintiff.

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 [314]*314event that the negligence of the transporting carrier was a concurring cause of the injury. This case decided in 1849 has been overruled in England in The Bernina, 12 P. D. 58; Mills v. Armstrong, 13 App. Cas. 1. Although cited as a supporting authority in Allyn v. Boston & Albany Railroad, it was distinctly repudiated by this court in Randolph v. O’ Riordon, 155 Mass. at page 337. The rule of Thorogood v. Bryan was early adopted in Wisconsin and has continuously prevailed there. Houfe v. Fulton, 29 Wis. 296. Prideaux v. Mineral Point, 43 Wis. 513. Otis v. Janesville, 47 Wis. 422. Olson v. Luck, 103 Wis. 33. Lightfoot v. Winnebago Traction Co. 123 Wis. 479. The Wisconsin court has made no distinction between a passenger of a common carrier and one riding gratuitously as the guest of the driver. It is the law of Michigan also that where a person of years of discretion voluntarily enters the private conveyance of another and is injured by the carelessness of the person in charge of the conveyance concurrently with the negligence of a third person, the plaintiff is precluded from recovery against such third person. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad v. Miller, 25 Mich. 274. Schindler v. Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway, 87 Mich. 410. Cowan v. Muskegon Railway, 84 Mich. 583. In Mullen v. Owosso, 100 Mich. 103, however, there was a vigorous dissenting opinion. This rule has been limited by the Supreme Court of Michigan so as to apply only to adults, the distinction being based upon the fiction that in such cases the relation of principal and agent exists, and it has been held that if the infant was so young as to lack the capacity to make the driver, at whose invitation she is riding as a guest, her agent, and where there is no evidence that either party supposed that such relation existed as a matter of fact, then the guest is not prevented from recovery by the neglect of the stranger at whose invitation she rides. Hampel v. Detroit, Grand Rapids && Western Railroad, 138 Mich. 1. The rule has been further limited so as not to apply to injuries received by one himself in the exercise of due care riding upon a fire engine injured by the concurring negligence of a motorman of the defendant and the driver of the engine in which the plaintiff was riding, following the same rule adopted'by this court in Murray v. Boston Ice Co. 180 Mass. 165,

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Bluebook (online)
79 N.E. 873, 193 Mass. 309, 1907 Mass. LEXIS 1172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shultz-v-old-colony-street-railway-co-mass-1907.