BIEDENBACH v. TEAGUE

Agency — Negligence — Automobiles — Car owned by defendant's father — Authority of minor son's friend to drive car — Evidence.

In a trespass case, in which it appeared that at the time of the accident in which the death of plaintiffs' decedent happened the automobile in which decedent was a passenger, owned by the father of defendant, K, and given by the father to defendant for his own use, was being operated by defendant T; that defendants, each seventeen years old, and decedent, sixteen years old, and a girl who was decedent's date, drove to a cottage near a village in search of two girl friends of defendants; that the car was stopped approximately five hundred feet from the cottage, defendants walked to the cottage and talked to the girls while the others remained in the car, and then defendant T left the cottage unaccompanied by defendant K, proceeded to the car, drove it past the cottage, out on the highway, in order to turn the car and bring it back to the cottage, when the accident occurred, causing the fatal injuries to decedent; that K's father permitted his son to operate the car but did not allow anyone else to do so, as T, who did not have a driver's license, knew; that T had been operating the car on previous occasions, with K's knowledge and consent, and on the evening in question had driven the automobile for a short distance; that K testified that he did not tell T to bring the car up and when T left to do so K told him to wait, but T testified that he did not hear K say this; and that the court below held that the question of T's agency for K was for the jury; it was Held that the order of the court below refusing K's motion for a new trial and directing that judgment be entered upon the verdict for plaintiffs should be affirmed.

Argued November 16, 1960.