Negligence, Imputed. Where, at the trial of an action for personal injuries, alleged to have been received in a collision between a buggy in which the plaintiff was and one owned and driven by the defendant, and to have been caused by negligence on the part of the defendant, there is evidence tending to show that the plaintiff with another man were guests of the owner and driver of the buggy in which they were and that there did not exist either between the plaintiff and the driver or between the plaintiff and the other guest any relation of master and servant or of principal and agent or of mutual responsibility in a common enterprise, it cannot as matter of law be ruled that negligence either on the part of the driver or on the part of the other guest should be imputed to the plaintiff.
SHELDON, J.
It is impossible to go further in support of the defendant's contention than to say that upon the evidence it was a question for the jury to settle whether the circumstances were such that any negligence of either Mellody or Murphy, who were respectively the driver and another occupant of the buggy in which the plaintiff was seated, should be imputed to the plaintiff. But the whole case was submitted to the jury under instructions which, as they are not stated in the bill of exceptions, must be presumed to have been sufficiently favorable to the defendant. The judge could not properly have ruled that the negligence of either or both of the plaintiff's companions must be imputed to him. The principles involved in the question were considered at large in the recent case of Schultz v. Old Colony Street Railway, 193 Mass. 309. See also Feneff v. Boston Maine Railroad, 196 Mass. 575, 578; Miller v. Boston Northern Street Railway, 197 Mass. 535; Chadbourne v. Springfield Street Railway, 199 Mass. 574; Peabody v. Haverhill, Georgetown Danvers Street Railway, 200 Mass. 277.
Exceptions overruled.