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Show PAGE TEN MONDAY, APRIL 1,1974 INTERMOUNTAIN COMMERCIAL RECORD In The Supreme Court of The State Of Utah in that th. elimination of the gue.t doctrine would hu,d.n oi lo.. from th. Injured to the negligent host personally. The not be could upheld against the con inatory treatment of automobileof gue.t. stitutional attack on the basis the ho.pitality justification. of Guest Statute Stands Jarki Cannon, Plaintiff and Appellant, JZn-tha- Counsel i Anthony Thurber No. 13366 Paula Oviatt. Rolland Laverne Hel.ley, Ralph M. Moffat and Grant Moffat, dba Moffat Brothers Trucking Company, Counael. Kipp ft QuiMtiKa d. Gary Christian Steven H. Qunn Defendants and Respondent. AND ?E7' aM W":. ad 1Uem Counsel, a minor, Plaintiff and Appellant, Kinghom, Oberhansly Curtis Oberhansly & O'Connell Steio.Ci379 v. FILED March 26, 1974 Jay G. Jackson and Harold C. Russell, Defendants and Respondents. L. M. Cummin es, Clerk Counsel! Armstrong, Rawlings, West & Schaerrex CALLISTER, Chief Justice: The appeals of the plaintiffs, which arose out of separate ahd unrelated actipnB, have been consolidated since they involved one common question of law, namely, was Section 41 -1 , U. C. A. 1953, unconstitutional? Each plaintiff, while a guest in a motor vehicle, moving upon a public highway in this state, sustained personal injuries in a vehicular accident. Each plaintiff initiated an action against his host, the driver of the vehicle, to recover damages for the negligent operation of the vehicle. Each host U. C. A. 1953, as a defense and denied liability. asserted Section 1, Each plaintiff urged unsuccessfully before the trial court that the Guest U. C. A. 1953, denied him equal protection of the law under Statute, the Constitution of the United States (14th Amendment) and the Constitution of Utah (Article I, Section 24). -9- 41-9-- 41-9- -1 appeal each plaintiff relies on the reasoning set forth in Brown wherein the Supreme Court of California held that the proffered justification for that jurisdiction's guest statute did not constitute a rational basis for the differential treatment accorded by the statutory scheme of classification and was therefore a denial of equal protection of the law. The Brown decision set forth two distinct justifications for the statute, the protection of hospitality and the prevention of collusive lawsuits. The court found the protection of hospitality rationale fatally defective on the grounds: (1) It failed to explain why the statute accorded differential treatment to automobile guests as distinguished irom other guests. (2) In light of recent developments in comparable legal doctrines, the interest in protecting hospitality could not rationally justify the withdrawal of legal protection from guests. (3) It ignored the prevalence of liability insurance coverage today, which undermines any alleged rational cuniiection between prevention ol lawsuits and the protection of hospitality. Trie me mention of collusive lawsuits rationale was dcifcrmneu uelL-ciie ui-icIlaal1, since it barred valid suits with the fraudulent claim?. Th. along curi lurther found that the classification was aggravated by a of limiting loopholes, which stayed the of a the under statute operation variety of diverse and illogical circumstances. numerous the that The court explained exceptions produced an absurd and illogical pattern which eliminated any rationality which might conceivably .p rl.iimed for the statute. On v. Merlo, that juri.dict Brown v. Merlo5 is a logical consequence in tort doctrine traditional the abandon to ming from their prior determination In this juristo that the status of a person determined the duty owed him. visitors" and diction the distinction between "invitees" or "business 0 Thus the classifi"licensees" or "social guests" has been preserved. 1, U.C.A. 1953, does not cation of an automobile guest in Sec-iothan accorded to other single out this one group for treatment different and an a guests. Likewise, the distinction between paying passenger automobile guest has been retained in the correlative distinctions between an invitee and licensee. Thus, in this jurisdiction an automobile guest has. not been isolated from all other guest, and recipients of generosity and alone denied a duty of due care by his host. n AND 1 The California court staled that the statute established three distinct :ivi..s oi classification: (1) The act treated automobile guests differently from paying passengers. (2) It treated automobile guests differently from social guests and recipients ol generosity and withdrew from auto guests the protection from negligently inflicted injuries generally enjoyed by a guest in other contexts. (3) The act distinguished between subclasses of auto guests, withholding recovery from guests injured while "in a vehicle" "during a ride" "upon a public highway" but permitted recovery by the guest injured under other circumstances. According to the court, the rationality of the tripartite classification scheme must be evaluated in the light of the purposes of the legislation. No other case had adjudicated the constitutional issue on rthr this basis. The court stated that the hospitality justification provided an inadequate explanation for the differential treatment accorded to automobile guests as distinguished from other guests. Under California law, guests or recipients of hospitality may generally demand that their hosts exercise due care so as not to injure them. 2 In a footnote3 the court explained that in 1929, the time of enactment, the guest statute had a closer relationship to general tort doctrine, since at that time property owners owed a duty of ordinary care only to invitees (business visitors) and owed only some lesser duty of care to licensees (social guests): Presently, in California, the general duty of ordinary care governs a landowner's duty to all those injured on his property, social guests and business visitors alike. Since the general tort doctrine has been modified, the guest statute singles automobile guests for a special burden and thus creates an arbitrary and unreasonable classification. The court reasoned that no realistic state purpose supported the classification scheme of the statute, since persons situated with respect to the purpose of the law (recipients of hospitality) do not receive like treatment. The court stated that the statutory purpose of fostering hospitality cannot rationally justify the lowering of protection for one class, namely, automobile guests as distinguished from paying passengers. The court relied on Rowland v. Christian4 and stated that just as it was unreasonable to lower the standard of care to a visitor on private property because he was a social guest rather than a "paying" invitee, it was unreasonable to single out an automobile guest and expose him to greater danger from negligence than a paying passenger. The fact that the guest paid nothing did not provide a reason to excuse the negligence of the host. The court further explained that the characterization of the guest's lawsuit as an act of ingratitude had been completely eroded by the development of almost universal automobile liability insurance coverage in recent years. Today, the insurance company and not the generous host, was the recipient of the protection of the guest statute. The court was of the opinion n 41-9-- . As previously noted, the court in Brown v. Merlo relied extenof the sively on Rowland v. Christian8 to prove the invalidityin 32 A. hospitality L. R 3d cited is case justification for the guest statute. Thi. techeliminate to laws of tort 513, as part of the general trend in the field nical status positions, which had the effect 9of insulating certain classes from liability. In an explanatory footnote, it i stated: This movement is probably a result of a general shift in the theory of tort law from the emphasis on the regulation of rights between individuals on the basis of relative fault toward a viewpoint which regards tort law as a device for social engineering, primarily concerned with allocation of liability in such a manner as to most satisfactorily protect the social fabric from the impact of such injuries as are a necessary or probable consequence of the complicated organization of society. Emphasis added. Brown v. Merlo, in effect, elevated this device for social engineering to the level of a constitutional doctrine. First, by this device as utilized in Rowland v. Christian, the traditional distinctions between invitees and licensees was nullified, resulting in the automobile guest alone being denied the duty of ordinary care by his host. Secondly, to nullify the hospitality justification, the court directly incorporated the underlying rationale of social engineering, namely that there should be an allocation of liability so as to protect the society from the impact of such injuries. The court stated that the widespread use of liability insurance shifted all or part of the burden of loss from the injured individual to the motoring public. Through this process of social engineering a legislative enactment in the area of economics and social welfare was thrust into conflict with the modified tort doctrine promulgated by the court. The court was of the opinion that the statutory classification caused discriminatory treatment to automobile guests and violated the equal protection guarantees of the California and United States Constitutions. In evaluating the determination of the California court that the statute was unconstitutional, there are two decisions of the United States Supreme Court that support an opposite conclusion. In Silver v. Silver, 10 the Connecticut guest statute was claimed to deny equal protection of the law on the ground that it distinguished between gratuitous passengers in automobiles and those in other classes of vehicles. The court responded:11 The use of the automobile as an instrument of transportation ' is peculiarly the suniect oi We cannot assume that legation. there are no evils to be corrected or permissible social objects to be gained bv the present statute. We are not unaware of the increasing frequency of litigation in which passengers carried gratuitously in automobiles, often casual guests or licensees, have sought the recovery of large sums for injuries alleged to have been due to negligent operation Whether there has been serious increase in the evils of vexatious litigation in this class of cases, where the carriage is by automobile, is for legislative determination and, if found, may well be the basis of legislative action further restricting the liability. Its wisdom is not the concern of courts. .... regard to the alleged ft stated: discriminatory classification, the court , . . there is no constitutional requirement that a regulation, in other respects permissible, must reach to which class every it might be applied - that the legislature must be held rigidly to the choice of regulating all or none. Citations In this day of almost universal highway transportation by motor car, we cannot say that abuses originating in the multiplicity of suits growing out of the gratuitous carriage of passengers in automobiles do not present so conspicuous an example of what the legislature may regard as an evil, as to justify legislation aimed at it, even hough some abuse, may not be hit. f Citations It i. en0ugh that the present .tatute strike, at the evil where it i. felt, and reaches the class of ca.es where it most frequently occurs. A similar interpretation ha. 13 v. William., been set forth in Dandridge wherein the court stated: recently In the area of economics and social a State does not v,o ate the Equal Protection Clause welfare, because the merely classifications made by its laws are tum , u ha. some "reasonable basis, it doe. noTo'd -imply becau.e the clarification "i. ot made with mathematical nicety or becau.e in practice it re.ult. in .ome " Citation "The problem, of government are aTal and mayju.tify, if they do not require, rough a'ceommodat it and illogical, may be, un.cientific. " Citation 1 "A SST" .JtT .st.,. 4 ' |